And the
lesser as well as the greater novels supply facts. In the _Forsaken
Woman_, Madame de Beauseant, who has been jilted by the Marquis of
Ajuda-Pinto, permits herself to be wooed by Gaston de Nueil, a man far
younger than herself. After ten years, he, in turn, quits her to marry
the person his mother has chosen for him; but, unable to bear the
combined burden of his remorse and yearning regret, he commits
suicide. This tale, like the _Lily in the Valley_, is a adaptation of
Balzac's liaison with Madame de Berny. It was written in the very year
he severed the material ties that bound them. The only distinction
between his case and that of Gaston de Nueil was that he had no desire
to kill himself, and was content to be no more than a friend, since he
was the freer to flirt with Madame de Castries. And when the latter
lady kept him on tenter-hooks, tormenting him, tempting him, but never
yielding to him, he revenged himself by writing the _Duchess de
Langeais_, attributing to the foolish old general his own hopes,
fears, and disappointments at the hands of the coquettish, capricious
duchess. "I alone," he said in a letter, "know the horrible that is in
this narrative.
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