pared to the Spanish Juana Loca, but she was only eccentric. While
in the Orient she was stabbed and almost lost her life. In 1853 she
returned to France, then to Milan where she maintained a salon, but
she deteriorated physically and mentally.

For almost half a century her name was familiar not alone in Italian
political and patriotic circles, but throughout intellectual Europe.
The personality of this strange woman was veiled in a haze of mystery,
and a halo of martyrdom hung over her head. Notwithstanding her
eccentricities and exaggerations, she wielded an intellectual
fascination in her time, and her exalted social position, her beauty,
and her independence of character gave to her a place of conspicuous
prominence.

As to whether Balzac always sustained an indifferent attitude towards
the Princesse Belgiojoso there is some question, but he always
expressed a feeling of nonchalance in writing about her to Madame
Hanska. He regarded her as a courtesan, a beautiful _Imperia_, but of
the extreme blue-stocking type. She was superficial in her criticism,
and received numbers of _criticons_ who could not write. She wrote him
at the request of the editor asking him to contribute a story for the
_Democratie Pacifique_.

Balzac visited her frequently, calling her the Princesse
_Bellejoyeuse_, and she rendered him many services, but he probably
guarded against too great an intimacy, having witnessed the fate of
Alfred de Musset. He was, however, greatly impressed by her beauty,
and in the much discussed letter to his sister Laure he speaks of
Madame Hanska as a masterpiece of beauty who could be compared only to
the Princesse _Bellejoyeuse_, only infinitely more beautiful. Some
years later, however, this beauty had changed for him into an ugliness
that was even repulsive.

It amused the novelist very much to have people think that he had
dedicated to the Princesse Belgiojoso _Modeste Mignon_, a work written
in part by Madame Hanska, and dedicated to her. In the first edition
this book was dedicated to a foreign lady, but seeing the false
impression made he dedicated it, in its second edition to a Polish
lady. He did, however, dedicate _Gaudissart II_ to:

Madame la Princesse de Belgiojoso, nee Trivulce.

Balzac found much rest and recuperation in travel, and in going to
Turin, in 1836, instead of traveling alone, he was accompanied by a
most charming lady, Madame Caroline Marbouty. She had literary
pretensions a