ve the date as April 15, 1850. The Princess Radziwill
writes: "Concerning the date of Balzac's marriage, it was
solemnized as he wrote it to his family on March 2_14_1850, at
Berditcheff in Poland. Balzac, however, was a French subject, and
as such had to be married according to the French civil law, by a
French consul. There did not exist one in Berditcheff, so they had
perforce to repair to Kieff for this ceremony. The latter took
place on April 3_15 of the same year, and this explains the
discrepancy of dates you mention which refer to two different
ceremonies."

What must have been the novelist's feeling of triumph, after almost
seventeen years of waiting, suffering and struggle, to write:

"Thus, for the last twenty-four hours there has been a Madame Eve
de Balzac, nee Countess Rzewuska, or a Madame Honore de Balzac, or
a Madame de Balzac the elder. This is no longer a secret, as you
see I tell it to you without delay. The witnesses were the
Countess Mniszech, the son-in-law of my wife, the Count Gustave
Olizar, brother-in-law of the Abbe Czarouski, the envoy of the
Bishop; and the cure of the parish of Berditcheff. The Countess
Anna accompanied her mother, both exceedingly happy . . ."

With great joy and childish pride, Balzac informed his old friend and
physician, Dr. Nacquart, who knew so well of his adoration for his
"Polar Star" and his seventeen long years of untiring pursuit, that he
had become the husband of the grandniece of Marie Leczinska and the
brother-in-law of an aide-de-camp general of His Majesty the Emperor
of all the Russias, the Count Adam Rzewuski, step-father of Count
Orloff; the nephew of the Countess Rosalia Rzewuska, first lady of
honor to Her Majesty the Empress; the brother-in-law of Count Henri
Rzewuski, the Walter Scott of Poland as Mizkiewicz is the Polish Lord
Byron; the father-in-law of Count Mniszech, of one of the most
illustrious houses of the North, etc., etc.!

Though this was by far and away Balzac's greatest and most passionate
love, the present writer cannot agree with the late Professor Harry
Thurston Peck in the following dictum: "It was his first real love,
and it was her last; and, therefore, their association realized the
very characteristic aphorism which Balzac wrote in a letter to her
after he had known her but a few short weeks: 'It is only the last
love of a woman that can satisfy the first love of a man.'"