fact which she wisely concealed because of Balzac's creditors; and
Balzac speaks with admiration of her noble generosity and
disinterestedness, in this denuding herself of her fortune.

The newly-married couple travelled back to Wierzchownia, arriving,
quite tired out, at half-past ten at night; and the next morning, as
soon as he woke, Balzac wrote to inform his mother of the great event.
He explained, with a well-adjusted prevision of future discord, if the
elder Madame de Balzac's dignity were not sufficiently considered,
that his wife had intended writing herself to offer her respects, but
that her hands were so swollen with rheumatic gout that she could not
hold a pen. He further informed his family, who had hitherto been kept
in ignorance of the fact, that from the same cause she was often
unable to walk. However, this did not depress him, as he remarked with
his usual cheerfulness, that she would certainly be cured in Paris,
where she would be able to take exercise and would follow a prescribed
treatment. On the same day he penned a delighted letter to his sister,
containing the exultant words: "For twenty-four hours, therefore,
there has now existed a Madame Eve de Balzac, _nee_ Rzewuska, _or_ a
Madame Honore de Balzac, _or_ a Madame de Balzac the younger." He
could hardly believe in his own good fortune, and the joyful letter
finishes with the words, "Ton frere Honore, au comble du bonheur!"

Two days later, Balzac wrote to Madame Carraud a letter in which he
said: "Three days ago I married the only woman I have ever loved, whom
I love more than ever, and whom I shall love till death. This union
is, I think, the recompense which God has had in reserve for me after
so much adversity, so many years of work, so much gone through and
overcome. I did not have a happy youth or happy springtide; I shall
have the most brilliant of summers and the sweetest of autumns." In
his newly-found happiness he did not forget that his old friend was
now in straitened circumstances, but begged her from himself and
Madame Honore to consider their house as her own: "Therefore, whenever
you wish to come to Paris you will come to us, without even giving us
notice. You will come to us in the Rue Fortunee as if to your own
home, just as I used to go to Frapesle. This is my right. I must
remind you of what you said to me one day at Angouleme, when, having
broken down after writing 'Louis Lambert,' I was afraid of madness,
and talked of