ng there partly in order to
visit these friends, partly to see Limoges, and partly to examine the
scene in which he was going to place one of his most beautiful novels,
_Le Cure de Village_. While crossing a square under the conduct of the
young M. Nivet, Balzac perceived at the corner of the rue de la
Vieille-Poste and the rue de la Cite an old house, on the ground-floor
of which was the shop of a dealer in old iron. With the clearness of
vision peculiar to him, he decided that this would be a suitable
setting for the work of fiction he had already outlined in his mind.
It is here that are unfolded the first scenes of _Le Cure de Village_,
while on one of the banks of the Vienne is committed the crime which
forms the basis of the story.

CHAPTER III

LITERARY FRIENDS

MADAME GAY--MADAME HAMELIN--MADAME DE GIRARDIN--MADAME
DESBORDES-VALMORE--MADAME DORVAL

"O matre pulchra filia pulchrior!"

Though Balzac did not go out in "society" a great deal, he was
fortunate in associating with the best literary women of his time, and
in knowing the charming Madame Sophie Gay, whose salon he frequented,
and her three daughters. Elisa, the eldest of these, was married to
Count O'Donnel. Delphine was married June 1, 1831, to Emile de
Girardin, and Isaure, to Theodore Garre, son of Madame Sophie Gail, an
intimate friend of Madame Gay. These two women were known as "Sophie
la belle" and "Sophie la laide" or "Sophie de la parole" and "Sophie
de la musique." Together they composed an _opera-comique_ which had
some success. In 1814, Madame Gay wrote _Anatole_, an interesting
novel which Napoleon is said to have read the last night he passed at
Fontainebleau before taking pathetic farewell of his guard. A few
years before this, she wrote another novel which met with much
success, _Leonine de Monbreuse_, a study of the society and customs of
the _Directoire_ and of the Empire.

Madame Gay had made a literary center of her drawing-room in the rue
Gaillon where she had grouped around her twice a week not only many of
the literary and artistic celebrities of the epoch, but also her
acquaintances who had occupied political situations under the Empire.
Madame Gay, who had made her debut under the _Directoire_, had been
rather prominent under the Empire, and under the Restoration took
delight in condemning the government of the Bourbons. Introduced in