erms with Madame de C---- on account of the _Duchesse de
Langeais_--so much the better." If Balzac refers to Madame de Castries
in the following except, one may even say that he had her correct his
work.

"Say whatever you like about _La Duchesse de Langeais_, your
remarks do not affect me; but a lady whom you may perhaps know,
illustrious and elegant, has approved everything, corrected
everything like a royal censor, and her authority on ducal matters
is incontestable; I am safe under the shadow of her shawl."

Balzac continued to call on her and to write to her occasionally, and
was very sympathetic to her illness, especially as her Parisian
friends seemed to have abandoned her. Though death did not come to her
until more than twenty-five years later, he writes at this time:

"Madame de Castries is dying; the paralysis is attacking the other
limb. Her beauty is no more; she is blighted. Oh! I pity her. She
suffers horribly and inspires pity only. She is the only person I
visit, and then, for one hour every week. It is more than I really
can do, but the hour is compelled by the sight of that slow
death."

In her despondency he tries to cheer her:

"I do not like your melancholy; I should scold you well if you were
here. I would put you on a large divan, where you would be like a
fairy in the midst of her palace, and I would tell you that in
this life you must love in order to live. Now, you do not love. A
lively affection is the bread of the soul, and when the soul is
not fed it grows starved, like the body. The bonds of the soul and
body are such that each suffers with the other. . . . A thousand
kindly things in return for your flowers, which bring me much
happiness, but I wish for something more. . . . You have mingled
bitterness with the flatteries you have the goodness to bestow on
my book, as if you knew all the weight of your words and how far
they would reach. I would a thousand times rather you would
consider the book and the pen as things of your own, than receive
these praises."[*]

[*] It is interesting to note Balzac's fondness for flowers, as is
seen in his association of them with various women, and the
prominent place he has given them in some of his works.

Though his visits continued, their friendship gradually grew colder,
and in 1836 he writes: "I have broken the last frail relations of
politeness with Madame de C----. She enjoys the so