“Some days later the author found himself in the company of two ladies.  The first had been one of the most humane and most intellectual women of the court of Napoleon.  Having attained a high social position, the Restoration surprised her and caused her downfall; she had become a hermit.  The other, young, beautiful, was playing at that time, in Paris, the role of a fashionable woman.  They were friends, for the one being forty years of age, and the other twenty-two, their aspirations rarely caused their vanity to appear on the same scene.  ’Have you noticed, my dear, that in general women love only fools?’—­’What are you saying, Duchess?’"[*]

[*] M. Turquain states that Madame Hamelin is one of these women and
    that the Duchesse d’Abrantes in incontestably the other.  For a
    different opinion, see the chapter on Madame Gay.  The italics are
    the present writer’s.

In La Femme abandonnee, Madame de Beauseant resembles the Duchess as portrayed in this description: 

“All the courage of her house seemed to gleam from the great lady’s brilliant eyes, such courage as women use to repel audacity or scorn, for they were full of tenderness and gentleness.  The outline of that little head, . . . the delicate, fine features, the subtle curve of the lips, the mobile face itself, wore an expression of delicate discretion, a faint semblance of irony suggestive of craft and insolence.  It would have been difficult to refuse forgiveness to those two feminine failings in her in thinking of her misfortunes, of the passion that had almost cost her her life.  Was it not an imposing spectacle (still further magnified by reflection) to see in that vast, silent salon this woman, separated from the entire world, who for three years had lived in the depths of a little valley, far from the city, alone with her memories of a brilliant, happy, ardent youth, once so filled with fetes and constant homage, now given over to the horrors of nothingness?  The smile of this woman proclaimed a high sense of her own value.”

In the postscript to the Physiologie du Mariage, Balzac mentions a gesture of one of these “intellectual” women, who interrupts herself to touch one of her nostrils with the forefinger of her right hand in a coquettish manner.  In La Femme abandonnee, Madame de Beauseant has the same gesture.  Another gesture of Madame de Beauseant in La Femme abandonnee indicates that Balzac had in mind the Duchesse d’Abrantes:  “. . .  Then, with her other hand, she made a gesture as if to pull the bell-rope.  The charming gesture, the gracious threat, no doubt, called up some sad thought, some memory of her happy life, of the time when she could be wholly charming and graceful, when the gladness of her heart justified every caprice, and gave one more charm to her slightest movement.  The lines of her forehead gathered between her brows, and the expression of her face grew dark in the soft candle-light. . . .”  The Duchesse d’Abrantes had on two occasions rung to dismiss her lovers, M. de Montrond and General Sebastiani.  Balzac had doubtless heard her relate these incidents, and they are contained in the Journal intime, which she gave him.[*]