aid that it would be too transparent.
Diodati makes my heart beat! Those four syllables, it is the cry
of the _Montjoie Saint-Denis!_ of my heart."

Francesca Colonna, the Princess Gandolphini, is the heroine of
_l'Ambitieux par Amour_, a novel supposed to have been published by
Albert Savarus and described in the book which bears his name. Using
her name, the hero is represented as having written the story of the
Duchesse d'Argaiolo and himself, he taking the name of Rodolphe. Here
are given, in disguise again, the details of Balzac's early relations
to Madame Hanska. Albert Savarus, while traveling in Switzerland, sees
a lady's face at the window of an upper room, admires it and seeks the
lady's acquaintance. She proves to be the Duchesse d'Argaiolo, an
Italian in exile. She had been married very young to the Duke
d'Argaiolo, who was rich and much older than she. The young man falls
in love with this beautiful lady, and she promises to be his as soon
as she becomes free.

Gabriel Ferry states that Balzac first saw Madame Hanska's face at a
window, and the Princess Radziwill says that Balzac went to the hotel
to meet her aunt. It is to be noted that the year 1834 is that in
which Balzac and Madame Hanska were in Geneva together.

The Villa Diodati, noted for having been inhabited by Lord Byron, is
situated on Lake Geneva, at Cologny, not far from Pre Leveque,[*]
where M. de Hanski and his family resided in the _maison
Mirabaud-Amat_.

[*] Balzac preserved a remembrance of the happy days he had spent with
Madame Hanska at Pre-Leveque, Lake Geneva, by dating _La Duchesse
de Langeais_, January 26, 1834, Pre-Leveque.

There are numerous allusions to Diodati in Balzac's correspondence,
from which one would judge that he had some very unhappy associations
with Madame de Castries, and some very happy ones with Madame Hanska
in connection with Diodati:

"When I want to give myself a magnificent fete, I close my eyes,
lie down on one of my sofas, . . . and recall that good day at
Diodati which effaced a thousand pangs I had felt there a year
before. You have made me know the difference between a true
affection and a simulated one, and for a heart as childlike as
mine, there is cause there for an eternal gratitude. . . . When
some thought saddens me, then I have recourse to you; . . . I see
again Diodati, I stretch myself on the good sofa of the Maison
Mirabaud. . . . Diodati, that image of a