_. The
shock was so great that she fainted, and, on regaining consciousness,
wept bitterly over the premature death of her fried. A few years
before her own death, in 1855, Madame de Girardin was greatly
depressed by painful disappointments. The death of Balzac may be
numbered as one of the sad events which discouraged, in the decline of
life, the heart and the hope of this noble woman.

Madame Desbordes-Valmore was another literary woman whom Balzac met in
the salon of Madame Sophie Gay, where she and Delphine recited poetry.
Losing her mother at an early age under especially sad circumstances
and finding her family destitute, after long hesitation, she resigned
herself to the stage. Though very delicate, by dint of studious
nights, close economy and many privations, she prepared herself for
this work. At this time she contracted a _habit_ of suffering which
passed into her life. She played at the _Opera Comique_ and recited
well, but did not sing. At the age of twenty her private griefs
compelled her to give up singing, for the sound of her own voice made
her weep. So from music she turned to poetry, and her first volume of
poems appeared in 1818. She began her theatrical career in Lille,
played at the Odeon, Paris, and in Brussels, where she was married in
1817 to M. Valmore, who was playing in the same theater. Though she
went to Lyons, to Italy, and to the Antilles, she made her home in
Paris, wandering from quarter to quarter.

Of her three children, Hippolyte, Undine (whose real name was
Hyacinthe) and Ines, the two daughters passed away before her. Her
husband was honor and probity itself, and suffered only as a man can,
from compulsory inaction. He asked but for honest employment and the
privilege to work. She was so sensitive and felt so unworthy that she
did not call for her pension after it was secured for her by her
friends, Madame Recamier and M. de Latouche. A letter written by her
to Antoine de Latour (October 15, 1836) gives a general idea of her
life: "I do not know how I have slipped through so many shocks,--and
yet I live. My fragile existence slipped sorrowfully into this world
amid the pealing bells of a revolution, into whose whirlpool I was
soon to be involved. I was born at the churchyard gate, in the shadow
of a church whose saints were soon to be desecrated."

She was indeed a "tender and impassioned poetess, . . . one who united
an exquisite moral sensibility to a thrilling gift of song.