“Madame d’Aiglemont’s dress harmonized with the thought that dominated her person.  Her hair was gathered up into a tall coronet of broad plaits, without ornament of any kind, for she seemed to have bidden farewell forever to elaborate toilets.  Nor were any of the small arts of coquetry which spoil so many women to be detected in her.  Only her bodice, modest though it was, did not altogether conceal the dainty grace of her figure.  Then, too, the luxury of her long gown consisted in an extremely distinguished cut; and if it is permissible to look for expression in the arrangement of materials, surely the numerous straight folds of her dress invested her with a great dignity.  Moreover, there may have been some lingering trace of the indelible feminine foible in the minute care bestowed upon her hand and foot; yet, if she allowed them to be seen with some pleasure, it would have tasked the utmost malice of a rival to discover any affectation in her gestures, so natural did they seem, so much a part of old childish habit, that her careless grace absolves this vestige of vanity.  All these little characteristics, the nameless trifles which combine to make up the sum of a woman’s beauty or ugliness, her charm or lack of charm, can not be indicated, especially when the soul is the bond of all the details and imprints on them a delightful unity.  Her manner was in perfect accord with her figure and her dress.  Only in certain women at a certain age is it given to put language into their attitude.  Is it sorrow, is it happiness that gives to the woman of thirty, to the happy or unhappy woman, the secret of this eloquence of carriage?  This will always be an enigma which each interprets by the aid of his hopes, desires, or theories.  The way in which she leaned both elbows on the arm of her chair, the toying of her inter-clasped fingers, the curve of her throat, the freedom of her languid but lithesome body which reclined in graceful exhaustion, the unconstraint of her limbs, the carelessness of her pose, the utter lassitude of her movements, all revealed a woman without interest in life. . . .”

Balzac’s parents having moved from Villeparisis to Versailles, he had an excellent opportunity of seeing the Duchess while visiting them, as she was living at that time in the Grand-Rue de Montreuil No. 65, in a pavilion which she called her ermitage.  In La Femme de trente Ans, Balzac has described her retreat as a country house between the church and the barrier of Montreuil, on the road which leads to the Avenue de Saint-Cloud.  This house, built originally for the short-lived loves of some great lord, was situated so that the owner could enjoy all the pleasures of solitude with the city almost at his gates.

Soon after their meeting, a sympathetic friendship was formed between the two writers; they had the same literary aspirations, the same love for work, the same love of luxury and extravagant tastes, the same struggles with poverty and the same trials and disappointments.