"O matre pulchra filia pulchrior!"
Though Balzac did not go out in "society" a great deal, he was fortunate in associating with the best literary women of his time, and in knowing the charming Madame Sophie Gay, whose salon he frequented, and her three daughters. Elisa, the eldest of these, was married to Count O'Donnel. Delphine was married June 1, 1831, to Emile de Girardin, and Isaure, to Theodore Garre, son of Madame Sophie Gail, an intimate friend of Madame Gay. These two women were known as "Sophie la belle" and "Sophie la laide" or "Sophie de la parole" and "Sophie de la musique." Together they composed an /opera-comique/ which had some success. In 1814, Madame Gay wrote /Anatole/, an interesting novel which Napoleon is said to have read the last night he passed at Fontainebleau before taking pathetic farewell of his guard. A few years before this, she wrote another novel which met with much success, /Leonine de Monbreuse/, a study of the society and customs of the /Directoire/ and of the Empire.
Madame Gay had made a literary center of her drawing-room in the rue Gaillon where she had grouped around her twice a week not only many of the literary and artistic celebrities of the epoch, but also her acquaintances who had occupied political situations under the Empire. Madame Gay, who had made her debut under the /Directoire/, had been rather prominent under the Empire, and under the Restoration took delight in condemning the government of the Bourbons. Introduced into this company, though yet unknown to fame, Balzac forcibly impressed all those who met him, and while his physique was far from charming, the intelligence of his eyes reveled his superiority. Familiar and even hilarious, he enjoyed Madame Gay's salon especially, for here he experienced entire liberty, feeling no restraint whatever. At her receptions as in other salons of Paris, his toilet, neglected at times to the point of slovenliness, yet always displayed some distinguishing peculiarity.
Having acquired some reputation, the young novelist started to carry about with him the enormous and now celebrated cane, the first of a series of magnificent eccentricities. A quaint carriage, a groom whom he called Anchise, marvelous dinners, thirty-one waistcoats bought in one month, with the intention of bringing this number to three hundred and sixty-five, were only a few of the number of bizarre things, which astonished for a moment his feminine friends, and which he laughingly called /reclame/. Like many writers of this epoch, Balzac was not polished in the art of conversing. His conversation was but little more than an amusing monologue, bright and at times noisy, but uniquely filled with himself, and that which concerned him personally. The good, like the evil, was so grossly exaggerated that both lost all appearance of truth. As time went on, his financial embarrassments continually growing and his hopes of relieving them increasing in the same proportion, his future millions and his present debts were the subject of all his discourses.
Madame Gay was by no means universally beloved. In her sharp and disagreeable voice she said much good of herself and much evil of others. She had a mania for titles and was ever ready to mention some count, baron or marquis. In her drawing-room, Balzac found a direct contrast to the Royalist salon of the beautiful Duchesse de Castries which he frequented. In both salons, he met a society entirely unfamiliar to him, and acquainted himself sufficiently with the conventions of these two spheres to make use of them in his novels.
The /Physiologie du Mariage/, published anonymously in December, 1829, gave rise to a great deal of discussion. According to Spoelberch de Lovenjoul, two women well advanced in years, Madame Sophie Gay and Madame Hamelin, are supposed to have inspired the work, and even to have dictated some of its anecdotes least flattering to their sex. This Madame Hamelin, born in Guadeloupe about 1776, was the marvel of the /Directoire/, and several times was sent on secret missions by Napoleon. The role she played under the /Directoire/, the /Consulat/ and the Empire is not clear, but she was a confidential friend of Chateaubriand, lived in the noted house called the /Madeleine/, near the forest of Fontainebleau, and wrote about it as did Madame de Sevigne about /Les Rochers/. While living there, she received her Bonapartist friends as well as her Legitimist friends. Having lived in a society where life means enjoyment, she had many anecdotes to relate. She was a fine equestrienne, a most beautiful dancer, apparently naturally graceful, and bore the sobriquet of /la jolie laide/. Her marriage to the banker, M. Hamelin, together with her accomplishments, secured her a place in the society of the /Directoire/. Balzac, in a letter to Madame Hanska, refers to her as /une vieille celebrite/, and states that she wept over the letter of Madame de Mortsauf to Felix in /Le Lys dans la Vallee/. It is interesting to note that he later built his famous house and breathed his last in the rue Fortunee to which Madame Hamelin gave her Christian name, since it was cut through her husband's property, the former Beaujon Park, and that it became in 1851 the rue Balzac.
Delphine Gay, the beautiful and charming daughter of Madame Sophie Gay, was called "the tenth muse" by her friends, who admired the sonorous original verses which she recited as a young girl in her mother's salon. She became, in June, 1831, the wife of Emile de Girardin, the founder of the /Presse/. Possessing in her youth, a /bellezza folgorante/, Madame de Girardin was then in all the splendor of her beauty; her magnificent features, which might have been too pronounced for a young girl, were admirably suited to the woman and harmonized beautifully with her tall and statuesque figure. Sometimes, in the poems of her youth, she spoke as an authority on the subject of "the happiness of being beautiful." It was not coquetry with her, it was the sentiment of harmony; her beautiful soul was happy in dwelling in a beautiful body.
She held receptions for her friends after the opera, and Balzac was one of the frequenters of her attractive salon. Of her literary friends she was especially proud. According to Theophile Gautier, this was her coquetry, her luxury. If in some salon, some one—as was not unusual at that time—attacked one of her friends, with what eloquent anger did she defend them! What keen repartees, what incisive sarcasm! On these occasions, her beauty glowed and became illuminated with a divine radiance; she was magnificent; one might have thought Apollo was preparing to flay Marsyas!
"Madame de Girardin professed for Balzac a lively admiration to which he was sensible, and for which he showed his gratitude by frequent visits; a costly return for him who was, with good right, so avaricious of his time and of his working hours. Never did woman possess to so high a degree as Delphine,—we were allowed to call her by this familiar name among ourselves—the gift of drawing out the wit of her guests. With her, we always found ourselves in poetical raptures, and each left her salon amazed at himself. There was no flint so rough that she could not cause it to emit one spark; and with Balzac, as you may well believe, there was no need of trying to strike fire; he flashed and kindled at once." (Theophile Gautier, /Life Portraits, Balzac/.)
Balzac was interested in the occult sciences—in chiromancy and cartomancy. He had been told of a sibyl even more astonishing than Mademoiselle Lenormand, and he resolved that Madame de Girardin, Mery and Theophile Gautier should drive with him to the abode of the pythoness at Auteuil. The address given them was incorrect, only a family of honest citizens living there, and the old mother became angry at being taken for a sorceress. They had to make an ignominious retreat, but Balzac insisted that this really was the place and muttered maledictions on the old woman. Madame de Girardin pretended that Balzac had invented all this for the sake of a carriage drive to Auteuil, and to procure agreeable traveling companions. But if disappointed on this occasion, Balzac was more successful at another time, when with Madame de Girardin he visited the "magnetizer," M. Dupotet, rue du Bac.