Eveline Hańska ( 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) Hańska married landowner Wacław Hański (Wenceslas Hanski) when she was a teenager. [ 2 ] Hański, who was about 20 years her senior, suffered from depression. They had five children, but only a daughter, Anna, survived. In the late 1820s, Hańska began reading Balzac's novels, and in 1832, she sent him an anonymous letter. This began a decades-long correspondence in which Hańska 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 Hańska. After her husband died in 1841, a series of complications obstructed Hańska's marriage to Balzac. Chief of these was the estate and her daughter Anna's inheritance, bot...
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