Eveline HaÅ„ska ( Ewelina , née Rzewuska , 6 January c. 1805 – 11 April 1882) was a Polish noblewoman best known for her marriage to French novelist Honoré de Balzac . Born at the Wierzchownia estate in Volhynia , [ 1 ] (now Ukraine) HaÅ„ska married landowner WacÅ‚aw HaÅ„ski (Wenceslas Hanski) when she was a teenager. [ 2 ] HaÅ„ski, who was about 20 years her senior, suffered from depression. They had five children, but only a daughter, Anna, survived. In the late 1820s, HaÅ„ska began reading Balzac's novels, and in 1832, she sent him an anonymous letter. This began a decades-long correspondence in which HaÅ„ska and Balzac expressed a deep mutual affection. In 1832, they met for the first time, in Switzerland . Soon afterward he began writing the novel Séraphîta , which includes a character based on HaÅ„ska. After her husband died in 1841, a series of complications obstructed HaÅ„ska's marriage to Balzac. Chief of these was the estate and her daughter Anna's inheritance, bot...
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