s in the salon of the latter's mother, Madame Sophie Gay,
that Balzac met her.

The Duchesse d'Abrantes, widow of Marechal Junot, had enjoyed under
the Empire all the splendors of official life. Her salon had been one
of the most attractive of her epoch. Being in reduced circumstances
after the downfall of the Empire and having four children (Josephine,
Constance, Napoleon and Alfred) to support, her life was a constant
struggle to obtain a fortune and a position for her children. But as
she had no financial ability, and had acquired very extravagant
habits, the money she was constantly seeking no sooner entered her
hands than it vanished. Wishing to renounce none of her former
luxuries, she insisted upon keeping her salon as in former days,
trying to conceal her poverty by her gaiety; but it was a sorrowful
case of _la misere doree_.

Feeling that luxury was as indispensable to her as bread, and finding
her financial embarrassment on the increase, she decided to support
herself by means of her pen. She might well have recalled the wise
words of Madame de Tencin when she warned Marmontel to beware of
depending on the pen, since nothing is more casual. The man who makes
shoes is sure of his pay; the man who writes a book or a play is never
sure of anything.

Though the Generale Junot belonged to a society far different from
Balzac's they had many things in common which brought him frequently
to her salon. Balzac realized the necessity of frequenting the salon,
saying that the first requisite of a novelist is to be well-bred; he
must move in society as much as possible and converse with the
aristocratic _monde_. The kitchen, the green-room, can be imagined,
but not the salon; it is necessary to go there in order to know how to
speak and act there.

Though Balzac visited various salons, he presented a different
appearance in the drawing-room of Madame d'Abrantes. The glories of
the Empire overexcited him to the point of giving to his relations
with the Duchesse a vivacity akin to passion. The first evening, he
exclaimed: "This woman has seen Napoleon as a child, she has seen him
occupied with the ordinary things of life, then she has seen him
develop, rise and cover the world with his name! She is for me a saint
come to sit beside me, after having lived in heaven with God!" This
love of Balzac for Napoleon underwent more than one variation, but at
this time he had erected in his home in the rue de Cassini a little
al