loops over her neck, like the head-dress with rigid
double locks of the statues at Memphis, accentuating very finely the
general severity of her features. She has a full, broad forehead,
bright with its smooth surface on which the light lingers, and molded
like that of a hunting Diana; a powerful, wilful brow, calm and still.
The eyebrows, strongly arched, bend over the eyes in which the fire
sparkles now and again like that of fixed stars. The cheek-bones,
though softly rounded, are more prominent than in most women, and
confirm the impression of strength. The nose, narrow and straight, has
high-cut nostrils, and the mouth is arched at the corners. Below the
nose the lip is faintly shaded by a down that is wholly charming;
nature would have blundered if she had not placed there that tender
smoky tinge.

Balzac admitted that this was the portrait of Madame Dudevant, saying
that he rarely portrayed his friends, exceptions being G. Planche in
Claude Vignon, and George Sand in Camille Maupin (Mademoiselle des
Touches), both with their consent.

Madame Dudevant was an excessive smoker, and during Balzac's visit to
her, she had him smoke a hooka and latakia which he enjoyed so much
that he wrote to Madame Hanska, asking her to get him a hooka in
Moscow, as he thought she lived near there, and it was there or in
Constantinople that the best could be found; he wished her also, if
she could find true latakia in Moscow, to send him five or six pounds,
as opportunities were rare to get it from Constantinople. Later, on
his visit to Sardinia, he wrote her from Ajaccio: "As for the latakia,
I have just discovered (laugh at me for a whole year) that Latakia is
a village of the island of Cyprus, a stone's throw from here, where a
superior tobacco is made, named from the place, and that I can get it
here. So mark out that item."[*]

[*] _Lettres a l'Etrangere. This contradicts the statement of S. de
Lovenjoul, _Bookman_, that Balzac had a horror of tobacco and is
known to have smoked only once, when a cigar given him by Eugene
Sue made him very ill. He evidently had this excerpt of a letter
in mind: "I have never known what drunkenness was, except from a
cigar which Eugene Sue made me smoke against my will, and it was
that which enabled me to paint the drunkenness for which you blame
me in the _Voyage a Java_." This visit to George Sand was made
five years after this letter was written. Or S. de Lov