To add one
or two examples to the number already given. Claire Brunne (Madame
Marbouty) seems to have suggested his _Muse of the County_, a
Berrichon blue-stocking; Madame d'Agoult and Liszt became Madame de
Rochfide and the musician Conti in _Beatrix_; a cousin of Madame
Hanska, Thaddeus Wylezinski, who worshipped her discreetly, is
depicted under the traits of Thaddeus Paz, a Polish exile in the
_False Mistress_, who assumes a feigned name to conceal his love;
Lamartine furnished the conception of the poet Canalis in _Modeste
Mignon_, the resemblance being at first so striking that the novelist
afterwards toned it away a little; and Monnier, the caricaturist,
certainly supplied the essential elements in Bixiou, who is so well
drawn in _Cousin Bette_ and the _Firm of Nucingen_. The Baron Nucingen
himself has some of the features of the James de Rothschild whom
Balzac knew; and Rastignac embodied the author's impression of Thiers
in the statesman's earlier years. One might go further and couple
Delacroix the painter's name with that of Joseph Bridau in _A
Bachelor's Household_, Frederick Lemaitre, the actor's, with Medal's
in _Cousin Pons_, Emile de Girardin's with du Tillet's in _Cesar
Birotteau_.
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