Ewelina Hańska
Encyclopedia
Eveline Hańska was a Polish noblewoman best known for her marriage to French novelist Honoré de Balzac
. Born at the Wierzchownia estate in Volhynia
, (now Ukraine) Hańska married landowner Wacław Hański
(Wenceslas Hanski) when she was a teenager. Hański, who was about 20 years her senior, suffered from depression. They had five children, but only a daughter, Anna, survived.
In the late 1820s, Hańska began reading Balzac's novels, and in 1832, she sent him an anonymous letter. This began a decades-long correspondence in which Hańska and Balzac expressed a deep mutual affection. In 1832, they met for the first time, in Switzerland
. Soon afterward he began writing the novel Séraphîta
, which includes a character based on Hańska.
After her husband died in 1841, a series of complications obstructed Hańska's marriage to Balzac. Chief of these was the estate and her daughter Anna's inheritance, both of which might be threatened if she married him. Anna married a Polish count, easing some of the pressure. About the same time, Hańska gave Balzac the idea for his 1844 novel Modeste Mignon
. In 1850 they married and moved to Paris, but he died five months later. Though she never remarried, she took several lovers, and died in 1882.
was established as Polish nobility, known for wealth and military prowess. One ancestor had imprisoned his own mother in a tower to extract his part of an inheritance. Hańska's great-grandfather, Wacław Rzewuski, was a famous writer and Grand Crown Hetman
. When the Russian Empire
gained control of lands owned by the family through the Partitions of Poland
at the end of the 18th century, Rzewuski swore his allegiance to Catherine II
. He was rewarded with a comfortable position in the ranks of the empire. Moving between assignments in Kiev
, St. Petersburg
, and elsewhere, he chose as his primary residence the village of Pohrebyszcze
in the region of Volhynia
.
She was born in the Pohrebyszcze castle, in the Kiev Governorate
of Russian partition of Poland
. Although scholars agree that Hańska was born on 6 January, the year is disputed. Her biographers and those of her Balzac offer conflicting evidence of her age, taken from correspondence, family records, and testimonies from descendants. Most estimates range between 1801 and 1806. Balzac's biographer Graham Robb
writes: "Balzac chose 1806 as her date of birth and he was probably right." Roger Pierrot's 1999 biography of Hańska, however, contends that she was born in 1804. Polish Biographical Dictionary
gives 24 December 1805 (Georgian) which converts to 5 January 1805 (Julian).
Like her brothers and sisters, Hańska was educated by her parents about family lineage and religion. Her mother was a devout Catholic, but her father also taught the children about Voltairian
rationality. The family was secluded in Pohrebyszcze, with only occasional trips away. Once a year, the family visited Kiev
for a market gathering, during which Rzewuski sold grain and the her mother purchased clothing and supplies for the estate.
Ewelina had three bothers: Adam, Ernest and Henryk
, and three sisters: Alina, Karolina (better known as Karolina Sobańska) and Paulina. Hańska was closest to her brother Henryk, who later became famous for his work in the genre of Polish folk literature known as gawęda
. They shared a passion for philosophical discussions, especially related to love and religion. Hańska's other brothers, Adam and Ernest, both pursued military careers. Hańska's eldest sister, Karolina, was admired as a child for her beauty, intellect, and musical talent. She later married a man 34 years her senior, a landowner from Podolie
named Hieronim Sobański. They separated after two years, and she began a series of passionate affairs with some of her many suitors. These included the Russian general Ivan Ossipovitch Witt, the Polish poet Adam Mickiewicz
, and the Russian writer Alexander Pushkin. The Tsar
considered her behavior scandalous and declared her dangerously disloyal. As a result, Hańska and the other Rzewuski women were watched carefully by police when they visited the Russian capital of St Petersburg. Hańska's younger sisters, Alina and Paulina, married early into comfortable upper-class families. Alina married a wealthy landowner from Smilavichy, whose father had gained his fortune by managing property for the Ogiński family
. Her nephew Stanisław Moniuszko
became a renowned composer. Paulina married a banker from Odessa
named Jan Riznič.
, a noble who lived nearby at Verhivnya (Wierzchownia). Theirs was a union of wealthy families, not of passion. His estate covered 21000 acres (85 km²) and employed over 3,000 serfs, including 300 domestic servants. The manor had been designed by a French architect, and its owner filled it with luxuries from around the world: paintings from galleries in Milan and London, dinnerware from China, and a library of 25,000 books in a variety of languages. Hański boasted that none of the furniture was Russian.
Hański was more than twenty years older than his teenage bride, and his personality clashed with her youthful vigor. He spent most of the day supervising the grounds, by some accounts with an iron fist. After dinner he was usually too fatigued to spend time with his wife, and retired early. He was generally dour, and lived with a depressed condition that Hańska referred to as "blue devils". Although she was surrounded by opulence, Hańska found herself dissatisfied with her new life and with her husband's emotional distance in particular. As one biographer put it: "He loved Eve but he was not deeply in love with her."
In the first five years of their marriage, Hańska gave birth to five children, all but one of whom died as infants. The surviving daughter, Anna, was a welcome joy to Hańska, and she trusted her care to a young governess named Henriette Borel who had moved to Wierzchownia from the Swiss town of Neuchâtel.
The estate at Wierzchownia was isolated. Hańska was bored by visits to the court at St. Petersburg, and even more bored by noble guests in her own home. She found nothing in common with the ladies of high society, and longed for the stimulating discussions she had enjoyed with her brother Henryk. She spent her time reading the books her husband imported from faraway lands.
One of the writers who most enchanted Hańska was the French novelist Honoré de Balzac
. After laboring in pseudonymous obscurity for ten years, Balzac published Les Chouans
(The Chouans) in 1829. A tale of star-crossed love amidst a royalist uprising in Brittany
, it was the first work to which he signed his own name. Hańska was intrigued by the glowing portrayal of the female protagonist, driven by true love to protect the object of her desire. She also enjoyed Balzac's Physiologie du mariage (The Physiology of Marriage), also published in 1829, which heaps satirical scorn on husbands and celebrates the virtue of married women.
When she read his 1831 novel La Peau de chagrin
(The Magic Skin), however, Hańska was appalled by the coarse depiction of Foedora, the so-called "femme sans cœur" ("woman without a heart"). She felt that Balzac had lost the reverence shown in his earlier works, and worried that he had based Foedora on a real woman from his life. Motivated partly by concern, partly by boredom, and partly by a desire to influence the life of a great writer (as her sister Karolina had done), she wrote to Balzac.
On 28 February 1832 Hańska posted a letter from Odessa
with no return address. In it, she praised Balzac for his work, but scolded him for the negative portrayal of women in La Peau de chagrin. She urged a return to the glowing representations in his earlier novels, and signed enigmatically: "L'Étrangère" ("The Stranger" or "The Foreigner"). Balzac was intrigued by the letter; he took out a personal advertisement in the Gazette de France
indicating his receipt of an anonymous letter and expressing regret for being unable to reply. She probably never saw this notice.
Hańska wrote to Balzac several times during 1832. On 7 November she posted a seven-page letter filled with praise and flattery:
She insisted, however, that they could never meet, and indeed that he should never know her name: ("For you I am The Stranger, and shall remain so all my life.") Still, she wished for him to write back, so she advised him to place a notice in La Quotidienne
to "L'É" from "H.B.". He purchased a notice similar to the earlier one in the Gazette, and signed it according to her instructions.
In her next letter Hańska made arrangements for a trusted courier to collect letters from Balzac, and thereby allow for a direct correspondence. Before long she sent him the news that she and her husband would be traveling Europe, and visiting Vienna, Hanski's childhood home. They would also travel to the Swiss village of Neuchâtel, to visit the family of her daughter's governess. Contradicting her vow of eternal anonymity, she suggested a meeting. Balzac agreed immediately, and began to make preparations for the journey. Also, sometime in 1833, Balzac wrote his first confession of love to her, despite being at that time in another relationship.
to find cheap paper for a publishing enterprise, Balzac crossed into Switzerland and registered at the Hôtel du Faucon under the name Marquis d'Entragues. He sent word to Hańska that he would visit the garden of the Maison Andrié, where she and her family were staying. He looked up and saw her face at the window, then – as he described it later – he "lost all bodily sensation". They met later that day (September 25) at a spot overlooking Lake Neuchâtel
; according to legend, he noticed a woman reading one of his books. He was overwhelmed with her beauty, and she wrote soon afterwards to her brother, describing Balzac as "cheerful and lovable just like you".
Hańska and Balzac met several times over the next five days, and her husband became enchanted with Balzac as well, inviting him to meals with the family. During a trip to Lake Biel
, Hański went to arrange lunch, leaving his wife and Balzac alone. In the shade of a large oak tree, they kissed and exchanged vows of patience and fidelity. She told him of the family's plan to visit Geneva
for Christmas; Balzac agreed to visit before the end of the year. Before he left Nauchâtel, she sent a passionate letter to his hotel: "Villain! Did you not see in my eyes all that I longed for? But have no fear, I felt all the desire that a woman in love seeks to provoke".
Arriving in Geneva on December 26, the Christmas Eve, Balzac stayed at the Auberge de l'Arc, near the Maison Mirabaud where the Hański family had settled for the season. She left a ring for him at the hotel, with a note asking for a new promise of love. He gave it, and described how he began wearing the ring on his left hand, "with which I hold my paper, so that the thought of you clasps me tight." At this time he began working on a philosophical novel, Séraphîta
, about a hermaphroditic angel united by the love of a mortal man for a compassionate and sensual woman. Balzac explained that she was his model for the latter. It was clear to all that Hański was in ill health, and Hańska began to think about her future with the French author. In the meantime, she asked Balzac to begin collecting for her autographs of the famous people he spent time with in Paris and elsewhere.
After leaving Geneva on 8 February, the Hański family spent several months visiting the major cities of Italy. In Florence the sculptor Lorenzo Bartolini
started work on a bust of Hańska. In the summer of 1834 they returned to Vienna, where they would stay for another year. During this time Balzac continued writing to Hańska, and by accident two especially amorous letters fell into the hands of her husband. He wrote to the French author, furious, and demanded an explanation. Balzac wrote to Hański claiming that it was nothing more than a game: "One evening, in jest, she said to me that she would like to know what a love-letter was. This was said wholly without meaning.... I wrote those two unfortunate letters to Vienna, supposing that she remembered our joke...." Hański apparently accepted the explanation, and invited Balzac to visit them in Vienna, which he did in May 1835.
Balzac's biographers agree that, despite his vows of loyalty to Hańska, he conducted affairs with several women during the 1830s, and may have fathered children with two of them. One was an Englishwoman named Sarah who had married the Count Emilio Guidoboni-Visconti. Hańska wrote to Balzac about these rumors in 1836, and he flatly denied them. Her suspicion was raised again, however, when he later dedicated his novel Béatrix
to "Sarah". Balzac also corresponded with Hański; while most of their family disapproved of Balzac, Hański respected him, and the two exchanged letters on literature and agronomy. Meanwhile, Hańska was experiencing a renewal of religious interest, partly because her daughter's governess, Henriette Borel, left to join a nunnery in Paris. Hańska taught her daughter Anna from the works of Christian scholars including Jean Baptiste Massillon
and St. François de Sales. Her religious interest was more towards mysticism
then mainstream religions; she corresponded with Baroness Barbara von Krüdener, and read on Rosicrucianism, Martinism
and Swedenborgianism. Balzac treated this attack of devotion with the sharpest disapproval. When Balzac sent her works in progress, her only replies were moral queries, rather than the stylistic criticism for which he hoped.
The future, however, was not as simple as Balzac wanted to believe. Hańska's family did not approve of the French author; her Aunt Rozalia was especially disdainful. To make matters worse, her late husband's uncle protested the Hański's will in which she had inherited Hański's estate. Horrified that her daughter would be robbed of everything, Hańska insisted that she must end her relationship with Balzac. "You are free", she wrote to him. As she made plans to protest the uncle's interference in St. Petersburg, Balzac wrote back to offer his help. He suggested that he could become a Russian citizen and "go to the Czar myself and ask him to sanction our marriage". She asked for his patience, which he offered anew.
Soon after she arrived in the Russian capital of St. Petersburg, in order to resolve some of the litigation issues surrounding her inheritance, she took Anna to a recital by the Hungarian composer and pianist Franz Liszt
. Although she did not succumb to Lisztomania, she was impressed by his musical talent and his good looks. "He is an extraordinary mixture", she wrote in her diary, "and I enjoy studying him." They saw one another on several occasions, but she ultimately rejected his advances. One biographer says that their last meeting "gives striking evidence of her loyalty to Balzac".
In late July 1843 Balzac visited her in St. Petersburg, the first time they had seen one another in eight years. He was struck by Hańska's resilient beauty, but his condition had deteriorated over the years. Biographers agree that she was much less physically attracted to him at this time. Still they renewed their vows of love and planned to marry as soon as she won her lawsuit. In early October he returned to Paris. Soon afterwards, she wrote a story based on her own experience writing to Balzac for the first time. Unhappy with it, she threw it into the fire, but the French author begged her to rewrite it so he could adapt it. He assured her that she would "know something of the joys of authorship when you see how much of your elegant and delightful writing I have preserved". Her story became Modeste Mignon
, Balzac's 1844 novel about a young woman who writes to her favorite poet.
Also in 1844 Hańska won her lawsuit. The wealth of her late husband's estate would go to Anna, who had become engaged to a Polish Count, Jerzy Mniszech. They planned to marry in 1846, after which time Hańska would bestow the inheritance. Thus Hańska's marriage to Balzac would have to wait. In the meantime, two urgent problems began to complicate their plans. One was his health, which had been deteriorating for years. In October 1843 he wrote to her about "horrible suffering which has its seat nowhere; which cannot be described; which attacks both heart and brain". Balzac's other problem was financial: despite his illness, he could not afford to relax his work schedule, since he owed more than 200,000 francs to various creditors.
. Balzac served as a witness and wrote an announcement for the Paris newspapers, which offended Hańska's sister Alina.
Hańska, living for a time in Dresden
, was not soothed, either, by Balzac's disregard for financial stability. For years he had planned to buy a house for them to share, but in August 1846 she sent him a stern admonition. Until his debts were paid, she wrote, "we must postpone buying any property". One month later he purchased a house on the Rue Fortunée for 50,000 francs. Having collected finery from his many travels, he searched across Europe for items to properly complete the furnishings: carpets from Smyrna
, embroidered pillowcases from Germany, and a handle for the lavatory chain crafted from Bohemian
glass.
In November, Hańska suffered a miscarriage; she wrote to Balzac with the tragic news. He wanted to visit her, but Anna wrote asking him to remain in Paris. The emotion involved, she wrote, "would be fatal". Hańska made plans to return to Wierzchownia, but Balzac begged her to visit him, which she did in the spring of 1847. As soon as she was back in Ukraine, however, a new wrinkle unfolded. Hańska had long been unhappy with the presence of Balzac's housekeeper, Louise Breugniot, and he promised to break with her before marrying. He wrote with alarm to Hańska explaining that Breugninot had stolen her letters to him and blackmailed the author for 30,000 francs. Biographers disagree about truth of this story; Robb suggests it was "a convincing hysterical performance put on for the benefit of his jealous fiancée".
Still, Balzac believed that keeping her letters was dangerous and, in a moment of characteristic impulse, threw them into the fire. He described it to her as "the saddest and most frightful day of my life ... I am looking at the ashes as I write to you, and I tremble seeing how little space fifteen years takes up." On 5 September 1847 he left Paris to join her for the first time in Wierzchownia. They spent several happy months together, but financial obligations required his presence in France. The Revolution of 1848
began one week after his return. Back in Wierzchownia, Hańska lost 80,000 francs due to a granary fire, and her time was consumed with three lawsuits. These complications, and Balzac's constant debt, meant that their finances were unstable, and she hesitated anew at the idea of marriage. In any case, a wedding would be impossible without approval from the Tsar, which he did not grant until spring of 1850. On 2 July 1849 Russian authorities responding to Balzac request of December 1847 to marry widow Hańska stated that he can do so but she cannot keep her lands.
Balzac returned to Wierzchownia in October, and immediately fell ill, with heart issues. His condition deteriorated throughout 1849, and doubts persisted in her mind about their union. Biographers generally agree that Hańska was convinced by Balzac's frail state and endless devotion. One wrote: "It was charity, as much as love or fame, which finally turned the scale." Robb indicates that the wedding was "surely an act of compassion on her part". To avoid rumors and suspicion from the Tsar, Hańska transferred ownership of the estate to her daughter. On 14 March 1850 they traveled to Berdychiv
and, accompanied by Anna and Jerzy, were married in a small ceremony at the parish church of St. Barbara.
Both Hańska and Balzac took ill after the wedding; she suffered from a severe attack of gout
, for which her doctor prescribed an unusual treatment: "Every other day she has to thrust her feet into the body of a sucking-pig which has only just been slit open, because it is necessary that the entrails should be quivering." She recovered, but he did not. They returned to Paris in late May, and his health improved slightly at the start of summer. By July, however, he was confined to his bed. Hańska nursed him constantly, as a stream of visitors – including the writers Victor Hugo
and Henri Murger
– came to pay their respects. When Balzac's vision started to give out, she began to act as his secretary, helping him with his writing.
In mid-August Balzac succumbed to gangrene
and began having fits of delirium. At one point he called out for Horace Bianchon, the fictional doctor he had included in many novels. But he also expressed great worry for Hańska, once telling Hugo: "My wife is more intelligent than I, but who will support her in her solitude? I have accustomed her to so much love." He died on 18 August 1850.
As most of Balzac's biographers point out, Hańska was not in the room when he died. Robb says she "must have retired for a moment", while André Maurois
notes that she had been by his side for weeks with no way of knowing how long it would continue, and "there was nothing to be done". Vincent Cronin
attributes her absence to the nature of their relationship: "From the first day by the lakeside at Neuchâtel theirs had been a Romantic love and Eve wanted to guard it to the end against that terrible taint of corruption."
. Hańska sponsored new editions of his works and was involved in editing some of them, even adding occasional content. Balzac's debt, meanwhile, still exceeded 200,000 francs, which Hańska paid while also providing for his mother's living expenses. One of her letters at the time gives voice to her frustrations: "In nursing my husband's incurable malady I ruined my health, just as I have ruined my private fortune in accepting the inheritance of debts and embarrassments which he left me." Anna and Jerzy moved into a nearby house in Paris.
Despite her obligations, Hańska was a beautiful unmarried woman of means living in Paris. The writer Jules Amédée Barbey d'Aurevilly
described her this way: "Her beauty was imposing and noble, somewhat massive, a little fleshy, but even in stoutness she retained a very lively charm which was spiced with a delightful foreign accent and a striking hint of sensuality." As she began sorting through Balzac's papers, she called on his friend, Champfleury
, for assistance. As they worked one evening, he complained of a headache. "I'll make it go away," she said, and began massaging his forehead. As he wrote later: "There are certain magnetic effluvia, in such situations, of which the effect is that the matter does not stop there." Her affair with the man twenty years her junior was brief, but it provided a tremendous release to Hańska, who had spent decades with older men in various states of ill health. She began partaking of the social life around her. "The night before last I laughed as I have never done before," she wrote in 1851. "Oh, how wonderful it is not to know anyone or have to worry about anyone, to have one's independence, liberty on the mountain-tops, and to be in Paris!"
Champfleury was intimidated by her vitality and jealousy, and removed himself from her life. On his recommendation, she turned creative control of Balzac's unfinished novels Le Député d'Arcis and Les Petits Bourgeois to another writer, Charles Rabou. Rabou added extensively to them and published both books in 1854. To soothe the publisher, Hańska falsely claimed that Balzac had chosen Rabou as his literary successor.
Hańska met the painter Jean Gigoux
when she hired him in 1851 to paint Anna's portrait. They began a relationship that lasted many years, but never married. Over the next thirty years, Hańska and particularly her spend-thrift daughter spent the remainder of their fortune on fine clothing and jewelry. Jerzy, meanwhile, succumbed to mental disorders and died in 1881, leaving behind a trail of debts. Hańska was forced to sell the house, but was allowed to continue living there. She died on 11 April 1882 and was buried in Balzac's grave at Père Lachaise Cemetery
.
In addition to Eveline, her daughter Anna, sister Alina, aunt Rozalia, first love (Tadeusz Wyleżyński), and several other figures that she introduced Balzac to or told him about, were also incorporated into his works. After they met, Poland, Polish topics, Polish names, and Polish (Slavic) mysticism began to appear much more frequently in his works, as exemplified by such characters as Hoene Wroński
, Grabianka
and General Chodkiewicz
.
notes, the "mysterious Pole" was criticized by some (Henry Bordeaux
, Octave Mirbeau
m Adolf Nowaczyński, Józef Ignacy Kraszewski
, Charles Léger and Pierre Descaves), and praised by others (Philippe Bertault, Marcel Bouteron
, Barbey d'Aurevilly, Sophie de Korwin-Piotrowska, Tadeusz Boy-Żeleński
, Tadeusz Grabowski, Juanita Helm Floyd and André Billy
). Czerny notes that one of the "greatest experts on Balzac", Spoelberch de Lovenjoul, referred to her as "one of the best women of the epoch", and that while there are those who deride her influence on Balzac, and question her feelings and motivations, few deny she had a crucial impact on him, and, for most, the "Great Balzac" emerged only after meeting her in early 1830s. Czerny concludes by saying: "However one could analyze her and their relationship, the impact of her love on Balzac was persistent, all-enveloping and decisive".
Honoré de Balzac
Honoré de Balzac was a French novelist and playwright. His magnum opus was a sequence of short stories and novels collectively entitled La Comédie humaine, which presents a panorama of French life in the years after the 1815 fall of Napoleon....
. Born at the Wierzchownia estate in Volhynia
Volhynia
Volhynia, Volynia, or Volyn is a historic region in western Ukraine located between the rivers Prypiat and Southern Bug River, to the north of Galicia and Podolia; the region is named for the former city of Volyn or Velyn, said to have been located on the Southern Bug River, whose name may come...
, (now Ukraine) Hańska married landowner Wacław Hański
Wacław Hański
Wacław Hański was a Polish noble, landowner, marszałek of the nobility in the Volhynian Governorate. First husband of Ewelina Hańska.-References:...
(Wenceslas Hanski) when she was a teenager. Hański, who was about 20 years her senior, suffered from depression. They had five children, but only a daughter, Anna, survived.
In the late 1820s, Hańska began reading Balzac's novels, and in 1832, she sent him an anonymous letter. This began a decades-long correspondence in which Hańska and Balzac expressed a deep mutual affection. In 1832, they met for the first time, in Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
. Soon afterward he began writing the novel Séraphîta
Séraphîta
Séraphîta is a French novel by Honoré de Balzac with themes of androgyny. It was published in the Revue de Paris in 1834.The work plunges into the fantastic and the supernatural self ....
, which includes a character based on Hańska.
After her husband died in 1841, a series of complications obstructed Hańska's marriage to Balzac. Chief of these was the estate and her daughter Anna's inheritance, both of which might be threatened if she married him. Anna married a Polish count, easing some of the pressure. About the same time, Hańska gave Balzac the idea for his 1844 novel Modeste Mignon
Modeste Mignon
Modeste Mignon is a novel by the French writer Honoré de Balzac. It is the fifth of the Scènes de la vie privée in La Comédie humaine....
. In 1850 they married and moved to Paris, but he died five months later. Though she never remarried, she took several lovers, and died in 1882.
Family and early life
Hańska was the fourth of seven children born to Adam Wawrzyniec Rzewuski and his wife, Justyna Rzewuska (née Rdułtowska). Their familyRzewuski family
Rzewuski family was an important family of Polish nobility from Lesser Poland region. The family originated from villages around the town of Łosice. They used the Krzywda coat of arms. Members of the family held several notable positions in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, most notably, that...
was established as Polish nobility, known for wealth and military prowess. One ancestor had imprisoned his own mother in a tower to extract his part of an inheritance. Hańska's great-grandfather, Wacław Rzewuski, was a famous writer and Grand Crown Hetman
Hetman
Hetman was the title of the second-highest military commander in 15th- to 18th-century Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which together, from 1569 to 1795, comprised the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, or Rzeczpospolita....
. When the Russian Empire
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
gained control of lands owned by the family through the Partitions of Poland
Partitions of Poland
The Partitions of Poland or Partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth took place in the second half of the 18th century and ended the existence of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, resulting in the elimination of sovereign Poland for 123 years...
at the end of the 18th century, Rzewuski swore his allegiance to Catherine II
Catherine II of Russia
Catherine II, also known as Catherine the Great , Empress of Russia, was born in Stettin, Pomerania, Prussia on as Sophie Friederike Auguste von Anhalt-Zerbst-Dornburg...
. He was rewarded with a comfortable position in the ranks of the empire. Moving between assignments in Kiev
Kiev
Kiev or Kyiv is the capital and the largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River. The population as of the 2001 census was 2,611,300. However, higher numbers have been cited in the press....
, St. Petersburg
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...
, and elsewhere, he chose as his primary residence the village of Pohrebyszcze
Pohrebysche
Pohrebysche is a town in Vinnytsia Oblast, Ukraine. It is the administrative center of the Pohrebyschensky Raion in western Ukraine. Pohrebysche is situated near the sources of the Ros River.-Names:Pohrebysche is also known as , , -History:...
in the region of Volhynia
Volhynia
Volhynia, Volynia, or Volyn is a historic region in western Ukraine located between the rivers Prypiat and Southern Bug River, to the north of Galicia and Podolia; the region is named for the former city of Volyn or Velyn, said to have been located on the Southern Bug River, whose name may come...
.
Kiev Governorate
Kiev Governorate , or Government of Kiev, was an administrative division of the Russian Empire.The governorate was established in 1708 along with seven other governorates and was transformed into a viceroyalty in 1781...
of Russian partition of Poland
Russian partition
The Russian partition was the former territories of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth that were acquired by the Russian Empire in the late-18th-century Partitions of Poland.-Terminology:...
. Although scholars agree that Hańska was born on 6 January, the year is disputed. Her biographers and those of her Balzac offer conflicting evidence of her age, taken from correspondence, family records, and testimonies from descendants. Most estimates range between 1801 and 1806. Balzac's biographer Graham Robb
Graham Robb
Graham Macdonald Robb FRSL is a British author.Robb was born in Manchester and educated at the Royal Grammar School Worcester and Exeter College, Oxford, where he studied Modern Languages...
writes: "Balzac chose 1806 as her date of birth and he was probably right." Roger Pierrot's 1999 biography of Hańska, however, contends that she was born in 1804. Polish Biographical Dictionary
Polish Biographical Dictionary
Polski słownik biograficzny is a Polish-language biographical dictionary, comprising an alphabetically arranged compilation of authoritative biographies of some 25,000 notable Poles and of foreigners who have been active in Poland – famous as well as less well-known persons, from Popiel, Piast...
gives 24 December 1805 (Georgian) which converts to 5 January 1805 (Julian).
Like her brothers and sisters, Hańska was educated by her parents about family lineage and religion. Her mother was a devout Catholic, but her father also taught the children about Voltairian
Voltaire
François-Marie Arouet , better known by the pen name Voltaire , was a French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit and for his advocacy of civil liberties, including freedom of religion, free trade and separation of church and state...
rationality. The family was secluded in Pohrebyszcze, with only occasional trips away. Once a year, the family visited Kiev
Kiev
Kiev or Kyiv is the capital and the largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River. The population as of the 2001 census was 2,611,300. However, higher numbers have been cited in the press....
for a market gathering, during which Rzewuski sold grain and the her mother purchased clothing and supplies for the estate.
Ewelina had three bothers: Adam, Ernest and Henryk
Henryk Rzewuski
Henryk Rzewuski was a Polish Romantic-era journalist and novelist.-Life:Count Henryk Rzewuski was a scion of a Polish magnate family in Ukraine. He was the son of Adam Wawrzyniec Rzewuski, a Russian senator who resided in St...
, and three sisters: Alina, Karolina (better known as Karolina Sobańska) and Paulina. Hańska was closest to her brother Henryk, who later became famous for his work in the genre of Polish folk literature known as gawęda
Gawęda
A gawęda is a story; especially, one that belongs to a kind of Polish epic literary genre.-History:Gawęda is a genre of Polish folk literature....
. They shared a passion for philosophical discussions, especially related to love and religion. Hańska's other brothers, Adam and Ernest, both pursued military careers. Hańska's eldest sister, Karolina, was admired as a child for her beauty, intellect, and musical talent. She later married a man 34 years her senior, a landowner from Podolie
Podolie
Podolie is a village and municipality in Nové Mesto nad Váhom District in the Trenčín Region of western Slovakia.-Geography:The municipality lies at an altitude of 180 metres and covers an area of 17.266km². It has a population of about 2056 people....
named Hieronim Sobański. They separated after two years, and she began a series of passionate affairs with some of her many suitors. These included the Russian general Ivan Ossipovitch Witt, the Polish poet Adam Mickiewicz
Adam Mickiewicz
Adam Bernard Mickiewicz ) was a Polish poet, publisher and political writer of the Romantic period. One of the primary representatives of the Polish Romanticism era, a national poet of Poland, he is seen as one of Poland's Three Bards and the greatest poet in all of Polish literature...
, and the Russian writer Alexander Pushkin. The Tsar
Tsar
Tsar is a title used to designate certain European Slavic monarchs or supreme rulers. As a system of government in the Tsardom of Russia and Russian Empire, it is known as Tsarist autocracy, or Tsarism...
considered her behavior scandalous and declared her dangerously disloyal. As a result, Hańska and the other Rzewuski women were watched carefully by police when they visited the Russian capital of St Petersburg. Hańska's younger sisters, Alina and Paulina, married early into comfortable upper-class families. Alina married a wealthy landowner from Smilavichy, whose father had gained his fortune by managing property for the Ogiński family
Oginski family
Ogiński was a noble family of Lithuania and Poland , member of The Princely Houses of Poland.They were most likely of Rurikid stock, related to Chernihiv Knyaz family, and originated from the Smolensk region, incorporated into the Grand Duchy of Lithuania around 14th century...
. Her nephew Stanisław Moniuszko
Stanisław Moniuszko
Stanisław Moniuszko was a Polish composer, conductor and teacher. His output includes many songs and operas, and his musical style is filled with patriotic folk themes of the peoples of the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth...
became a renowned composer. Paulina married a banker from Odessa
Odessa
Odessa or Odesa is the administrative center of the Odessa Oblast located in southern Ukraine. The city is a major seaport located on the northwest shore of the Black Sea and the fourth largest city in Ukraine with a population of 1,029,000 .The predecessor of Odessa, a small Tatar settlement,...
named Jan Riznič.
Marriage to Hański
In 1819 Eveline married Wacław HańskiWacław Hański
Wacław Hański was a Polish noble, landowner, marszałek of the nobility in the Volhynian Governorate. First husband of Ewelina Hańska.-References:...
, a noble who lived nearby at Verhivnya (Wierzchownia). Theirs was a union of wealthy families, not of passion. His estate covered 21000 acres (85 km²) and employed over 3,000 serfs, including 300 domestic servants. The manor had been designed by a French architect, and its owner filled it with luxuries from around the world: paintings from galleries in Milan and London, dinnerware from China, and a library of 25,000 books in a variety of languages. Hański boasted that none of the furniture was Russian.
Hański was more than twenty years older than his teenage bride, and his personality clashed with her youthful vigor. He spent most of the day supervising the grounds, by some accounts with an iron fist. After dinner he was usually too fatigued to spend time with his wife, and retired early. He was generally dour, and lived with a depressed condition that Hańska referred to as "blue devils". Although she was surrounded by opulence, Hańska found herself dissatisfied with her new life and with her husband's emotional distance in particular. As one biographer put it: "He loved Eve but he was not deeply in love with her."
In the first five years of their marriage, Hańska gave birth to five children, all but one of whom died as infants. The surviving daughter, Anna, was a welcome joy to Hańska, and she trusted her care to a young governess named Henriette Borel who had moved to Wierzchownia from the Swiss town of Neuchâtel.
The estate at Wierzchownia was isolated. Hańska was bored by visits to the court at St. Petersburg, and even more bored by noble guests in her own home. She found nothing in common with the ladies of high society, and longed for the stimulating discussions she had enjoyed with her brother Henryk. She spent her time reading the books her husband imported from faraway lands.
Becoming "The Stranger"
Honoré de Balzac
Honoré de Balzac was a French novelist and playwright. His magnum opus was a sequence of short stories and novels collectively entitled La Comédie humaine, which presents a panorama of French life in the years after the 1815 fall of Napoleon....
. After laboring in pseudonymous obscurity for ten years, Balzac published Les Chouans
Les Chouans
Les Chouans is an 1829 novel by French novelist and playwright Honoré de Balzac and included in the Scènes de la vie militaire section of his novel sequence La Comédie humaine. Set in the French region of Brittany, the novel combines military history with a love story between the aristocratic...
(The Chouans) in 1829. A tale of star-crossed love amidst a royalist uprising in Brittany
Brittany
Brittany is a cultural and administrative region in the north-west of France. Previously a kingdom and then a duchy, Brittany was united to the Kingdom of France in 1532 as a province. Brittany has also been referred to as Less, Lesser or Little Britain...
, it was the first work to which he signed his own name. Hańska was intrigued by the glowing portrayal of the female protagonist, driven by true love to protect the object of her desire. She also enjoyed Balzac's Physiologie du mariage (The Physiology of Marriage), also published in 1829, which heaps satirical scorn on husbands and celebrates the virtue of married women.
When she read his 1831 novel La Peau de chagrin
La Peau de chagrin
La Peau de chagrin is an 1831 novel by French novelist and playwright Honoré de Balzac . Set in early 19th-century Paris, it tells the story of a young man who finds a magic piece of shagreen that fulfills his every desire. For each wish granted, however, the skin shrinks and consumes a portion of...
(The Magic Skin), however, Hańska was appalled by the coarse depiction of Foedora, the so-called "femme sans cœur" ("woman without a heart"). She felt that Balzac had lost the reverence shown in his earlier works, and worried that he had based Foedora on a real woman from his life. Motivated partly by concern, partly by boredom, and partly by a desire to influence the life of a great writer (as her sister Karolina had done), she wrote to Balzac.
On 28 February 1832 Hańska posted a letter from Odessa
Odessa
Odessa or Odesa is the administrative center of the Odessa Oblast located in southern Ukraine. The city is a major seaport located on the northwest shore of the Black Sea and the fourth largest city in Ukraine with a population of 1,029,000 .The predecessor of Odessa, a small Tatar settlement,...
with no return address. In it, she praised Balzac for his work, but scolded him for the negative portrayal of women in La Peau de chagrin. She urged a return to the glowing representations in his earlier novels, and signed enigmatically: "L'Étrangère" ("The Stranger" or "The Foreigner"). Balzac was intrigued by the letter; he took out a personal advertisement in the Gazette de France
La Gazette
La Gazette , originally Gazette de France, was the first weekly magazine published in France. It was founded by Théophraste Renaudot and issued its first number on May 30, 1631. It progressively became the mouthpiece of one royalist faction, the Legitimists...
indicating his receipt of an anonymous letter and expressing regret for being unable to reply. She probably never saw this notice.
Hańska wrote to Balzac several times during 1832. On 7 November she posted a seven-page letter filled with praise and flattery:
Your soul embraces centuries, Monsieur; its philosophical concepts appear to be the fruit of long study matured by time; yet I am told that you are still young. I would like to know you, but feel that I have no need to do so. I know you through my own spiritual instinct; I picture you in my own way and feel that were I to set eyes upon you I should exclaim, 'That is he!' Your outward semblance probably does not reveal your brilliant imagination; you have to be moved, the sacred fire of genius has to be lit, if you are to show yourself as you really are, and you are what I feel you to be—a man superior in his knowledge of the human heart.
She insisted, however, that they could never meet, and indeed that he should never know her name: ("For you I am The Stranger, and shall remain so all my life.") Still, she wished for him to write back, so she advised him to place a notice in La Quotidienne
La Quotidienne
-History:It was set up in 1790 by M. de Coutouly. It ceased publication in the face of events in 1792, before returning to print in July 1774 under the title Le Tableau de Paris, returning to its original title in 1817....
to "L'É" from "H.B.". He purchased a notice similar to the earlier one in the Gazette, and signed it according to her instructions.
In her next letter Hańska made arrangements for a trusted courier to collect letters from Balzac, and thereby allow for a direct correspondence. Before long she sent him the news that she and her husband would be traveling Europe, and visiting Vienna, Hanski's childhood home. They would also travel to the Swiss village of Neuchâtel, to visit the family of her daughter's governess. Contradicting her vow of eternal anonymity, she suggested a meeting. Balzac agreed immediately, and began to make preparations for the journey. Also, sometime in 1833, Balzac wrote his first confession of love to her, despite being at that time in another relationship.
Meeting Balzac
In September 1833, after traveling to the French village of BesançonBesançon
Besançon , is the capital and principal city of the Franche-Comté region in eastern France. It had a population of about 237,000 inhabitants in the metropolitan area in 2008...
to find cheap paper for a publishing enterprise, Balzac crossed into Switzerland and registered at the Hôtel du Faucon under the name Marquis d'Entragues. He sent word to Hańska that he would visit the garden of the Maison Andrié, where she and her family were staying. He looked up and saw her face at the window, then – as he described it later – he "lost all bodily sensation". They met later that day (September 25) at a spot overlooking Lake Neuchâtel
Lake Neuchâtel
Lake Neuchâtel is a lake in Romandy, Switzerland . The lake lies mainly in the canton of Neuchâtel, but is also shared by the cantons of Vaud, of Fribourg, and of Bern....
; according to legend, he noticed a woman reading one of his books. He was overwhelmed with her beauty, and she wrote soon afterwards to her brother, describing Balzac as "cheerful and lovable just like you".
Hańska and Balzac met several times over the next five days, and her husband became enchanted with Balzac as well, inviting him to meals with the family. During a trip to Lake Biel
Lake Biel
Lake Biel or Lake Bienne is a lake in the west of Switzerland. Together with Lake Morat and Lake Neuchâtel, it is one of the three large lakes in the Jura region of Switzerland. It lies approximately at , at the language boundary between German & French speaking areas.The lake is 15 km long and up...
, Hański went to arrange lunch, leaving his wife and Balzac alone. In the shade of a large oak tree, they kissed and exchanged vows of patience and fidelity. She told him of the family's plan to visit Geneva
Geneva
Geneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...
for Christmas; Balzac agreed to visit before the end of the year. Before he left Nauchâtel, she sent a passionate letter to his hotel: "Villain! Did you not see in my eyes all that I longed for? But have no fear, I felt all the desire that a woman in love seeks to provoke".
Arriving in Geneva on December 26, the Christmas Eve, Balzac stayed at the Auberge de l'Arc, near the Maison Mirabaud where the Hański family had settled for the season. She left a ring for him at the hotel, with a note asking for a new promise of love. He gave it, and described how he began wearing the ring on his left hand, "with which I hold my paper, so that the thought of you clasps me tight." At this time he began working on a philosophical novel, Séraphîta
Séraphîta
Séraphîta is a French novel by Honoré de Balzac with themes of androgyny. It was published in the Revue de Paris in 1834.The work plunges into the fantastic and the supernatural self ....
, about a hermaphroditic angel united by the love of a mortal man for a compassionate and sensual woman. Balzac explained that she was his model for the latter. It was clear to all that Hański was in ill health, and Hańska began to think about her future with the French author. In the meantime, she asked Balzac to begin collecting for her autographs of the famous people he spent time with in Paris and elsewhere.
After leaving Geneva on 8 February, the Hański family spent several months visiting the major cities of Italy. In Florence the sculptor Lorenzo Bartolini
Lorenzo Bartolini
Lorenzo Bartolini was an Italian sculptor who infused his neoclassicism with a strain of sentimental piety and naturalistic detail which led him furthermore in the future, while he drew inspiration from the sculpture of the Florentine Renaissance rather than the overpowering influence of Antonio...
started work on a bust of Hańska. In the summer of 1834 they returned to Vienna, where they would stay for another year. During this time Balzac continued writing to Hańska, and by accident two especially amorous letters fell into the hands of her husband. He wrote to the French author, furious, and demanded an explanation. Balzac wrote to Hański claiming that it was nothing more than a game: "One evening, in jest, she said to me that she would like to know what a love-letter was. This was said wholly without meaning.... I wrote those two unfortunate letters to Vienna, supposing that she remembered our joke...." Hański apparently accepted the explanation, and invited Balzac to visit them in Vienna, which he did in May 1835.
Balzac's biographers agree that, despite his vows of loyalty to Hańska, he conducted affairs with several women during the 1830s, and may have fathered children with two of them. One was an Englishwoman named Sarah who had married the Count Emilio Guidoboni-Visconti. Hańska wrote to Balzac about these rumors in 1836, and he flatly denied them. Her suspicion was raised again, however, when he later dedicated his novel Béatrix
Béatrix
Béatrix is an 1839 novel by French author Honoré de Balzac and included in the Scènes de la vie privée section of his novel sequence La Comédie humaine....
to "Sarah". Balzac also corresponded with Hański; while most of their family disapproved of Balzac, Hański respected him, and the two exchanged letters on literature and agronomy. Meanwhile, Hańska was experiencing a renewal of religious interest, partly because her daughter's governess, Henriette Borel, left to join a nunnery in Paris. Hańska taught her daughter Anna from the works of Christian scholars including Jean Baptiste Massillon
Jean Baptiste Massillon
Jean Baptiste Massillon was a French Catholic bishop and famous preacher, Bishop of Clermont from 1717 until his death.-Early years:Massillon was born at Hyères in Provence where his father was a royal notary...
and St. François de Sales. Her religious interest was more towards mysticism
Mysticism
Mysticism is the knowledge of, and especially the personal experience of, states of consciousness, i.e. levels of being, beyond normal human perception, including experience and even communion with a supreme being.-Classical origins:...
then mainstream religions; she corresponded with Baroness Barbara von Krüdener, and read on Rosicrucianism, Martinism
Martinism
Martinism is a form of mystical and esoteric Christianity concerned with the fall of the first man, his state of material privation from his divine source, and the process of his return, called 'Reintegration' or illumination....
and Swedenborgianism. Balzac treated this attack of devotion with the sharpest disapproval. When Balzac sent her works in progress, her only replies were moral queries, rather than the stylistic criticism for which he hoped.
Hański's death
Hański died in November 1841. She sent Balzac a letter, sealed in black, with the news. He instantly wrote back: "je n'en aurais peut-être pas voulu recevoir d'autre de vous, malgré ce que vous me dites de triste sur vous et votre santé" ("I could not perhaps wish to have received any other [news] from you, in spite of the sad things you tell me about yourself and your health"). He made plans to visit Dresden in May, and obtain a visa to visit her in Russia.The future, however, was not as simple as Balzac wanted to believe. Hańska's family did not approve of the French author; her Aunt Rozalia was especially disdainful. To make matters worse, her late husband's uncle protested the Hański's will in which she had inherited Hański's estate. Horrified that her daughter would be robbed of everything, Hańska insisted that she must end her relationship with Balzac. "You are free", she wrote to him. As she made plans to protest the uncle's interference in St. Petersburg, Balzac wrote back to offer his help. He suggested that he could become a Russian citizen and "go to the Czar myself and ask him to sanction our marriage". She asked for his patience, which he offered anew.
Soon after she arrived in the Russian capital of St. Petersburg, in order to resolve some of the litigation issues surrounding her inheritance, she took Anna to a recital by the Hungarian composer and pianist Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt ; ), was a 19th-century Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher.Liszt became renowned in Europe during the nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age...
. Although she did not succumb to Lisztomania, she was impressed by his musical talent and his good looks. "He is an extraordinary mixture", she wrote in her diary, "and I enjoy studying him." They saw one another on several occasions, but she ultimately rejected his advances. One biographer says that their last meeting "gives striking evidence of her loyalty to Balzac".
In late July 1843 Balzac visited her in St. Petersburg, the first time they had seen one another in eight years. He was struck by Hańska's resilient beauty, but his condition had deteriorated over the years. Biographers agree that she was much less physically attracted to him at this time. Still they renewed their vows of love and planned to marry as soon as she won her lawsuit. In early October he returned to Paris. Soon afterwards, she wrote a story based on her own experience writing to Balzac for the first time. Unhappy with it, she threw it into the fire, but the French author begged her to rewrite it so he could adapt it. He assured her that she would "know something of the joys of authorship when you see how much of your elegant and delightful writing I have preserved". Her story became Modeste Mignon
Modeste Mignon
Modeste Mignon is a novel by the French writer Honoré de Balzac. It is the fifth of the Scènes de la vie privée in La Comédie humaine....
, Balzac's 1844 novel about a young woman who writes to her favorite poet.
Also in 1844 Hańska won her lawsuit. The wealth of her late husband's estate would go to Anna, who had become engaged to a Polish Count, Jerzy Mniszech. They planned to marry in 1846, after which time Hańska would bestow the inheritance. Thus Hańska's marriage to Balzac would have to wait. In the meantime, two urgent problems began to complicate their plans. One was his health, which had been deteriorating for years. In October 1843 he wrote to her about "horrible suffering which has its seat nowhere; which cannot be described; which attacks both heart and brain". Balzac's other problem was financial: despite his illness, he could not afford to relax his work schedule, since he owed more than 200,000 francs to various creditors.
Second marriage and widowhood
Hańska and Balzac were determined, however, and in 1845 she visited him in Paris with Anna and Jerzy. In April of the following year they visited Italy; Balzac joined them for a tour of Rome, and they proceeded to Geneva. Soon after he returned to Paris, she wrote with the news that she was pregnant. Balzac was overjoyed, certain that they would have a boy, and insisting on the name Victor-Honoré. The thought of having a son, he wrote, "stirs my heart and makes me write page upon page". To avoid scandal, he would have to marry Hańska in secret, to hide the fact that their child was conceived out of wedlock. In the meantime, Anna married Jerzy Mniszech on 13 October in WiesbadenWiesbaden
Wiesbaden is a city in southwest Germany and the capital of the federal state of Hesse. It has about 275,400 inhabitants, plus approximately 10,000 United States citizens...
. Balzac served as a witness and wrote an announcement for the Paris newspapers, which offended Hańska's sister Alina.
Hańska, living for a time in Dresden
Dresden
Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....
, was not soothed, either, by Balzac's disregard for financial stability. For years he had planned to buy a house for them to share, but in August 1846 she sent him a stern admonition. Until his debts were paid, she wrote, "we must postpone buying any property". One month later he purchased a house on the Rue Fortunée for 50,000 francs. Having collected finery from his many travels, he searched across Europe for items to properly complete the furnishings: carpets from Smyrna
Smyrna
Smyrna was an ancient city located at a central and strategic point on the Aegean coast of Anatolia. Thanks to its advantageous port conditions, its ease of defence and its good inland connections, Smyrna rose to prominence. The ancient city is located at two sites within modern İzmir, Turkey...
, embroidered pillowcases from Germany, and a handle for the lavatory chain crafted from Bohemian
Kingdom of Bohemia
The Kingdom of Bohemia was a country located in the region of Bohemia in Central Europe, most of whose territory is currently located in the modern-day Czech Republic. The King was Elector of Holy Roman Empire until its dissolution in 1806, whereupon it became part of the Austrian Empire, and...
glass.
In November, Hańska suffered a miscarriage; she wrote to Balzac with the tragic news. He wanted to visit her, but Anna wrote asking him to remain in Paris. The emotion involved, she wrote, "would be fatal". Hańska made plans to return to Wierzchownia, but Balzac begged her to visit him, which she did in the spring of 1847. As soon as she was back in Ukraine, however, a new wrinkle unfolded. Hańska had long been unhappy with the presence of Balzac's housekeeper, Louise Breugniot, and he promised to break with her before marrying. He wrote with alarm to Hańska explaining that Breugninot had stolen her letters to him and blackmailed the author for 30,000 francs. Biographers disagree about truth of this story; Robb suggests it was "a convincing hysterical performance put on for the benefit of his jealous fiancée".
Still, Balzac believed that keeping her letters was dangerous and, in a moment of characteristic impulse, threw them into the fire. He described it to her as "the saddest and most frightful day of my life ... I am looking at the ashes as I write to you, and I tremble seeing how little space fifteen years takes up." On 5 September 1847 he left Paris to join her for the first time in Wierzchownia. They spent several happy months together, but financial obligations required his presence in France. The Revolution of 1848
French Revolution of 1848
The 1848 Revolution in France was one of a wave of revolutions in 1848 in Europe. In France, the February revolution ended the Orleans monarchy and led to the creation of the French Second Republic. The February Revolution was really the belated second phase of the Revolution of 1830...
began one week after his return. Back in Wierzchownia, Hańska lost 80,000 francs due to a granary fire, and her time was consumed with three lawsuits. These complications, and Balzac's constant debt, meant that their finances were unstable, and she hesitated anew at the idea of marriage. In any case, a wedding would be impossible without approval from the Tsar, which he did not grant until spring of 1850. On 2 July 1849 Russian authorities responding to Balzac request of December 1847 to marry widow Hańska stated that he can do so but she cannot keep her lands.
Balzac returned to Wierzchownia in October, and immediately fell ill, with heart issues. His condition deteriorated throughout 1849, and doubts persisted in her mind about their union. Biographers generally agree that Hańska was convinced by Balzac's frail state and endless devotion. One wrote: "It was charity, as much as love or fame, which finally turned the scale." Robb indicates that the wedding was "surely an act of compassion on her part". To avoid rumors and suspicion from the Tsar, Hańska transferred ownership of the estate to her daughter. On 14 March 1850 they traveled to Berdychiv
Berdychiv
Berdychiv is a historic city in the Zhytomyr Oblast of northern Ukraine. Serving as the administrative center of the Berdychiv Raion , the city itself is of direct oblast subordinance, and is located south of the oblast capital, Zhytomyr, at around .The current estimated population is around...
and, accompanied by Anna and Jerzy, were married in a small ceremony at the parish church of St. Barbara.
Both Hańska and Balzac took ill after the wedding; she suffered from a severe attack of gout
Gout
Gout is a medical condition usually characterized by recurrent attacks of acute inflammatory arthritis—a red, tender, hot, swollen joint. The metatarsal-phalangeal joint at the base of the big toe is the most commonly affected . However, it may also present as tophi, kidney stones, or urate...
, for which her doctor prescribed an unusual treatment: "Every other day she has to thrust her feet into the body of a sucking-pig which has only just been slit open, because it is necessary that the entrails should be quivering." She recovered, but he did not. They returned to Paris in late May, and his health improved slightly at the start of summer. By July, however, he was confined to his bed. Hańska nursed him constantly, as a stream of visitors – including the writers Victor Hugo
Victor Hugo
Victor-Marie Hugo was a Frenchpoet, playwright, novelist, essayist, visual artist, statesman, human rights activist and exponent of the Romantic movement in France....
and Henri Murger
Henri Murger
Louis-Henri Murger, also known as Henri Murger and Henry Murger was a French novelist and poet....
– came to pay their respects. When Balzac's vision started to give out, she began to act as his secretary, helping him with his writing.
In mid-August Balzac succumbed to gangrene
Gangrene
Gangrene is a serious and potentially life-threatening condition that arises when a considerable mass of body tissue dies . This may occur after an injury or infection, or in people suffering from any chronic health problem affecting blood circulation. The primary cause of gangrene is reduced blood...
and began having fits of delirium. At one point he called out for Horace Bianchon, the fictional doctor he had included in many novels. But he also expressed great worry for Hańska, once telling Hugo: "My wife is more intelligent than I, but who will support her in her solitude? I have accustomed her to so much love." He died on 18 August 1850.
As most of Balzac's biographers point out, Hańska was not in the room when he died. Robb says she "must have retired for a moment", while André Maurois
André Maurois
André Maurois, born Emile Salomon Wilhelm Herzog was a French author.-Life:Maurois was born in Elbeuf and educated at the Lycée Pierre Corneille in Rouen, both in Normandy. Maurois was the son of Ernest Herzog, a Jewish textile manufacturer, and Alice Herzog...
notes that she had been by his side for weeks with no way of knowing how long it would continue, and "there was nothing to be done". Vincent Cronin
Vincent Cronin
Vincent Archibald Patrick Cronin, FRSL was a British historical, cultural, and biographical writer, best-known for his biographies of Louis XIV, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, Catherine the Great, and Napoleon, as well as for his books on the Renaissance.Cronin was born in Tredegar, Monmouthshire...
attributes her absence to the nature of their relationship: "From the first day by the lakeside at Neuchâtel theirs had been a Romantic love and Eve wanted to guard it to the end against that terrible taint of corruption."
Later years and death
Hańska lived with Balzac's mother for a time after his death, in the house he had spent so much time and expense furnishing. The elder Mme. Balzac moved in with a friend after several months, and Hańska approached the remains of her late husband's writing. Several works had been left incomplete, and publishers inquired about releasing a final edition of his grand collection La Comédie humaineLa Comédie humaine
La Comédie humaine is the title of Honoré de Balzac's multi-volume collection of interlinked novels and stories depicting French society in the period of the Restoration and the July Monarchy .-Overview:...
. Hańska sponsored new editions of his works and was involved in editing some of them, even adding occasional content. Balzac's debt, meanwhile, still exceeded 200,000 francs, which Hańska paid while also providing for his mother's living expenses. One of her letters at the time gives voice to her frustrations: "In nursing my husband's incurable malady I ruined my health, just as I have ruined my private fortune in accepting the inheritance of debts and embarrassments which he left me." Anna and Jerzy moved into a nearby house in Paris.
Despite her obligations, Hańska was a beautiful unmarried woman of means living in Paris. The writer Jules Amédée Barbey d'Aurevilly
Jules Amédée Barbey d'Aurevilly
Jules-Amédée Barbey d'Aurevilly was a French novelist and short story writer. He specialised in mystery tales that explored hidden motivation and hinted at evil without being explicitly concerned with anything supernatural...
described her this way: "Her beauty was imposing and noble, somewhat massive, a little fleshy, but even in stoutness she retained a very lively charm which was spiced with a delightful foreign accent and a striking hint of sensuality." As she began sorting through Balzac's papers, she called on his friend, Champfleury
Champfleury
Jules François Felix Fleury-Husson , who wrote under the name Champfleury, was a French art critic and novelist, a prominent supporter of the Realist movement in painting and fiction.In 1843 Fleury-Husson moved to Paris...
, for assistance. As they worked one evening, he complained of a headache. "I'll make it go away," she said, and began massaging his forehead. As he wrote later: "There are certain magnetic effluvia, in such situations, of which the effect is that the matter does not stop there." Her affair with the man twenty years her junior was brief, but it provided a tremendous release to Hańska, who had spent decades with older men in various states of ill health. She began partaking of the social life around her. "The night before last I laughed as I have never done before," she wrote in 1851. "Oh, how wonderful it is not to know anyone or have to worry about anyone, to have one's independence, liberty on the mountain-tops, and to be in Paris!"
Champfleury was intimidated by her vitality and jealousy, and removed himself from her life. On his recommendation, she turned creative control of Balzac's unfinished novels Le Député d'Arcis and Les Petits Bourgeois to another writer, Charles Rabou. Rabou added extensively to them and published both books in 1854. To soothe the publisher, Hańska falsely claimed that Balzac had chosen Rabou as his literary successor.
Hańska met the painter Jean Gigoux
Jean Gigoux
Jean Gigoux was a French painter and illustrator. He is best known as the last paramour of Eveline Hańska, the widow of French novelist Honoré de Balzac.- Notes :...
when she hired him in 1851 to paint Anna's portrait. They began a relationship that lasted many years, but never married. Over the next thirty years, Hańska and particularly her spend-thrift daughter spent the remainder of their fortune on fine clothing and jewelry. Jerzy, meanwhile, succumbed to mental disorders and died in 1881, leaving behind a trail of debts. Hańska was forced to sell the house, but was allowed to continue living there. She died on 11 April 1882 and was buried in Balzac's grave at Père Lachaise Cemetery
Père Lachaise Cemetery
Père Lachaise Cemetery is the largest cemetery in the city of Paris, France , though there are larger cemeteries in the city's suburbs.Père Lachaise is in the 20th arrondissement, and is reputed to be the world's most-visited cemetery, attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors annually to the...
.
Influence on Balzac's works
Eveline was an inspiration for many of Balzac's characters. She can be seen as the model for La Fosseue, Mme Claes, Modesta Mignon, Ursule Mirouet, Adelina Houlot, and especially Eugenia Grandet and Mme de Mortsauf. There is less agreement among scholars on whether she was also the inspiration for more negative characters such as Fedora and lady Dudley, as Balzac seems to have used her mostly as a model for more positive personas. His works also mention numerous characters named Eve or Eveline, and have several dedications to her.In addition to Eveline, her daughter Anna, sister Alina, aunt Rozalia, first love (Tadeusz Wyleżyński), and several other figures that she introduced Balzac to or told him about, were also incorporated into his works. After they met, Poland, Polish topics, Polish names, and Polish (Slavic) mysticism began to appear much more frequently in his works, as exemplified by such characters as Hoene Wroński
Józef Maria Hoene-Wronski
Józef Maria Hoene-Wroński was a Polish Messianist philosopher who worked in many fields of knowledge, not only as philosopher but also as mathematician, physicist, inventor, lawyer, and economist. He was born Hoene but changed his name in 1815.-Life:...
, Grabianka
Grabianka
Grabianka is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Osieck, within Otwock County, Masovian Voivodeship, in east-central Poland. It lies approximately east of Osieck, south-east of Otwock, and south-east of Warsaw.-References:...
and General Chodkiewicz
Chodkiewicz
The Chodkiewicz family was one of the most influential noble families of Ruthenian descent in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the 16th-17th centuries. Chodko Jurewicz, chamberlain to Grand Duke Vytenis was probably ancestor of whole clan and gaved it name Chodkiewicz, meaning "son of Chodzko"...
.
Defenders and detractors
Hańska became a controversial figure among the biographers and researchers of Balzac. As Zygmunt CzernyZygmunt Czerny
Zygmunt Bronisław Czerny was a Polish romance philologist .Before the war, he was a faculty member at the Lviv University and Academy of Foreign Trade in Lwów. During WWII, he was engaged in the underground education in Poland...
notes, the "mysterious Pole" was criticized by some (Henry Bordeaux
Henry Bordeaux
Henri Bordeaux was a French writer and lawyer.Bordeaux came from a family of lawyers of Savoy. His grandfather was a magistrate and his father served on the Chambéry bar. During his early life, he relocated between Savoy and Paris and the tensions between provincial and city life influenced his...
, Octave Mirbeau
Octave Mirbeau
Octave Mirbeau was a French journalist, art critic, travel writer, pamphleteer, novelist, and playwright, who achieved celebrity in Europe and great success among the public, while still appealing to the literary and artistic avant-garde...
m Adolf Nowaczyński, Józef Ignacy Kraszewski
Józef Ignacy Kraszewski
Józef Ignacy Kraszewski was a Polish writer, historian and journalist who produced more than 200 novels and 150 novellas, short stories, and art reviews He is best known for his epic series on the history of Poland, comprising twenty-nine novels in seventy-nine parts.As a novelist writing about...
, Charles Léger and Pierre Descaves), and praised by others (Philippe Bertault, Marcel Bouteron
Marcel Bouteron
Marcel Bouteron was a French librarian and French literature historian.He was member of the Académie des sciences morales et politiques....
, Barbey d'Aurevilly, Sophie de Korwin-Piotrowska, Tadeusz Boy-Żeleński
Tadeusz Boy-Zelenski
Tadeusz Kamil Marcjan Żeleński was a Polish stage writer, poet, critic above all, and translator of over 100 French literary classics into Polish...
, Tadeusz Grabowski, Juanita Helm Floyd and André Billy
André Billy
André Billy was a French writer....
). Czerny notes that one of the "greatest experts on Balzac", Spoelberch de Lovenjoul, referred to her as "one of the best women of the epoch", and that while there are those who deride her influence on Balzac, and question her feelings and motivations, few deny she had a crucial impact on him, and, for most, the "Great Balzac" emerged only after meeting her in early 1830s. Czerny concludes by saying: "However one could analyze her and their relationship, the impact of her love on Balzac was persistent, all-enveloping and decisive".
Further reading
- Arrault, Albert. Madame Hanska: Le dernier amour de Balzac. Tours: Arrault et Cie, 1949. .
- Hunt, Herbert J. Honoré de Balzac: A Biography. London: University of LondonUniversity of London-20th century:Shortly after 6 Burlington Gardens was vacated, the University went through a period of rapid expansion. Bedford College, Royal Holloway and the London School of Economics all joined in 1900, Regent's Park College, which had affiliated in 1841 became an official divinity school of the...
Athlone Press, 1957. . - Oliver, E. J. Honoré de Balzac. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1964. .
- Rogers, Samuel (1953). Balzac & The Novel. New York: Octagon Books. .