If Madame de Berny is Madame de Mortsauf in /Le Lys dans la Vallee/, Madame d'Abrantes has some traits of Lady Dudley, of whom Madame de Mortsauf was jealous. The Duchess gave him encouragement and confidence, and Balzac might have been thinking of her when he made the beautiful Lady Dudley say: "I alone have divined all that you were worth." After Balzac's affection for Madame de Berny was rekindled, Madame d'Abrantes, who was jealous of her, had a falling out with him.
It was probably Madame Junot who related to Balzac the story of the necklace of Madame Regnault de Saint-Jean d'Angely, to which allusion is made in his /Physiologie du Mariage/, also an anecdote which is told in the same book abut General Rapp, who had been an intimate friend of General Junot. At this time Balzac knew few women of the Empire; he did not frequent the home of the Countess Merlin until later. While Madame d'Abrantes was not a duchess by birth, Madame Gay was not a duchess at all, and Madame Hamelin still further removed from nobility.
It is doubtless to Madame d'Abrantes that he owes the subject of /El
Verdugo/, which he places in the period of the war with Spain; to her
also was due the information about the capture of Senator Clement de
Ris, from which he writes /Une tenebreuse Affaire/.
M. Rene Martineau, in proving that Balzac got his ideas for /Une tenebreuse Affaire/ from Madame d'Abrantes, states that this is all the more remarkable, since the personage of the senator is the only one which Balzac has kept just as he was, without changing his physiognomy in the novel. The senator was still living at the time Madame d'Abrantes wrote her account of the affair, his death not having occurred until 1827. In her /Memoires/, Madame d'Abrantes refers frequently to the kindness of the great Emperor, and it is doubtless to please her that Balzac, in the /denouement/ of /Une tenebreuse Affaire/, has Napoleon pardon two out of the three condemned persons. Although the novelist may have heard of this affair during his sojourns in Touraine, it is evident that the origin of the lawsuit and the causes of the conduct of Fouche were revealed to him by Madame Junot.
Who better than Madame d'Abrantes could have given Balzac the background for the scene of Corsican hatred so vividly portrayed in /La Vendetta/? Balzac's preference for General Junot is noticeable when he wishes to mention some hero of the army of the Republic or of the Empire; the Duc and Duchesse d'Abrantes are included among the noted lodgers in /Autre Etude de Femme/. It is doubtless to please the Duchess that Balzac mentions also the Comte de Narbonne (/Le Medecin de Campagne/).
Impregnating his mind with the details of the Napoleonic reign, so vividly portrayed in /Le Colonel Chabert/, /Le Medecin de Campagne/, /La Femme de trente Ans/ and others, she was probably the direct author of several observations regarding Napoleon that impress one as being strikingly true. Balzac read to her his stories of the Empire, and though she rarely wept, she melted into tears at the disaster of the Beresina, in the life of Napoleon related by a soldier in a barn.
The Generale Junot had a great influence over Balzac; she enlightened him also about women, painting them not as they should be, but as they are.[*]
[*] M. Joseph Turquain states that when the correspondence of Madame d'Abrantes and Balzac, to which he has had access, is published, one will be able to determine exactly the role she has played in the formation of the talent of the writer, and in the development of his character. His admirable work has been very helpful in the preparation of this study of Madame d'Abrantes.
During the last years of the life of Madame d'Abrantes, a somber tint spread over her gatherings, which gradually became less numerous. Her financial condition excited little sympathy, and her friends became estranged from her as the result of her poverty. Under her gaiety and in spite of her courage, this distress became more apparent with time. Her health became impaired; yet she continued to write when unable to sit up, so great was her need for money. From her high rank she had fallen to the depth of misery! When evicted from her poverty-stricken home by the bailiff, her maid at first conveyed her to a hospital in the rue de Chaillot, but there payment was demanded in advance. That being impossible, the poor Duchess, ill and abandoned by all her friends, was again cast into the street. Finally, a more charitable hospital in the rue des Batailles took her in. Thus, by ironical fate, the widow of the great /Batailleur de Junot/, who had done little else during the past fifteen years than battle for life, was destined to end her days in the rue des Batailles.