Letters from “L trangere”
Perhaps it was this youthful enthusiasm that so endeared him to women, for they were among his most avid readers and passionate admirers. Indeed, many of his stories and characters spoke directly to girls and women and their complex and often-frustrating situation.
He seemed to have an understanding of mature women that other male writers of his time lacked. Although he was never close to his mother, many other women, from his sister to his older companion, Mme de Berny - “La Dilecta,” as he called her - had taught him much about how women felt and thought, and they urged him to set it all down in writing, which he soon did.The response was a steady stream of letters from female readers all over Europe. In 1832, he noticed one stamped at Odessa, in the Russian Empire, carefully written on quality paper and clearly from a very cultivated person. The letter praised his previous writings, but expressed disappointment with his latest book, which supposedly was much less sympathetic to women. The message was unsigned.
Balzac spoke of it to several friends. Then a second letter came, then a third, although none of these have survived. Finally, another, dated 7 November 1832, arrived. Vincent Cronin translates it:
Monsieur,
It would hardly be surprising should I, a foreigner, use expressions that seem to you rather un-French, but write to you I must, to tell you with all possible enthusiasm how deeply your books have affected me. Your soul, Monsieur, is centuries-old; your philosophy seems to be based on age-long study, and yet I am told that you are still young. I should like to know you, yet I do not think I need to: a soul-instinct gives me a presentiment of you; I imagine you in my own way, and if I happen to see you I should say, “There he is!”
As I read your books my heart bounded; you raise woman to her rightful dignity and show her love as a heavenly virtue, a divine emanation; I admire the attractive sensibility of soul which allowed you to discover these things... I should like to write to you sometimes, to send you my thoughts and reflections... I have strength, energy, and courage only for what seems to me to join with my dominant feeling: Love!... I knew how to love and still do...
Again, the letter was anonymous, signed only “L’Etrangere” (the [female] foreigner).4
But it advised Balzac to put a note to its writer in the royalist French newspaper La Quotidienne (The Daily), the only French paper allowed into the Russian Empire. He was to sign it simply: “A. l'E - h.b.” Balzac replied immediately and soon received further letters. Eventually, a trusted courier carried messages back and forth, although Balzac's correspondent remained anonymous. “I should be lost if anyone knew that I write to you and receive letters from you,” she confided to him, vowing eternal anonymity.5