M. Rene Martineau, in proving that Balzac got his ideas for Une tenebreuse Affaire from Madame d’Abrantes, states that this is all the more remarkable, since the personage of the senator is the only one which Balzac has kept just as he was, without changing his physiognomy in the novel.  The senator was still living at the time Madame d’Abrantes wrote her account of the affair, his death not having occurred until 1827.  In her Memoires, Madame d’Abrantes refers frequently to the kindness of the great Emperor, and it is doubtless to please her that Balzac, in the denouement of Une tenebreuse Affaire, has Napoleon pardon two out of the three condemned persons.  Although the novelist may have heard of this affair during his sojourns in Touraine, it is evident that the origin of the lawsuit and the causes of the conduct of Fouche were revealed to him by Madame Junot.

Who better than Madame d’Abrantes could have given Balzac the background for the scene of Corsican hatred so vividly portrayed in La Vendetta?  Balzac’s preference for General Junot is noticeable when he wishes to mention some hero of the army of the Republic or of the Empire; the Duc and Duchesse d’Abrantes are included among the noted lodgers in Autre Etude de Femme.  It is doubtless to please the Duchess that Balzac mentions also the Comte de Narbonne (Le Medecin de Campagne).

Impregnating his mind with the details of the Napoleonic reign, so vividly portrayed in Le Colonel Chabert, Le Medecin de Campagne, La Femme de trente Ans and others, she was probably the direct author of several observations regarding Napoleon that impress one as being strikingly true.  Balzac read to her his stories of the Empire, and though she rarely wept, she melted into tears at the disaster of the Beresina, in the life of Napoleon related by a soldier in a barn.

The Generale Junot had a great influence over Balzac; she enlightened him also about women, painting them not as they should be, but as they are.[*]

[*] M. Joseph Turquain states that when the correspondence of Madame
    d’Abrantes and Balzac, to which he has had access, is published,
    one will be able to determine exactly the role she has played in
    the formation of the talent of the writer, and in the development
    of his character.  His admirable work has been very helpful in the
    preparation of this study of Madame d’Abrantes.

During the last years of the life of Madame d’Abrantes, a somber tint spread over her gatherings, which gradually became less numerous.  Her financial condition excited little sympathy, and her friends became estranged from her as the result of her poverty.  Under her gaiety and in spite of her courage, this distress became more apparent with time.  Her health became impaired; yet she continued to write when unable to sit up, so great was her need for money.  From