Eveline Hańska (née Ewelina Rzewuska; 6 January c. 1805 – 11 April 1882) was a Polish noblewoman best known for her marriage to French novelist Honoré de Balzac.

[7] When the Russian Empire gained control of lands owned by the family through the Partitions of Poland at the end of the 18th century, Rzewuski swore his allegiance to Catherine II.

[16] Once a year, the family visited Kiev for a market gathering, during which Rzewuski sold grain and her mother purchased clothing and supplies for the estate.

The manor had been designed by a French architect, and its owner filled it with luxuries from around the world: paintings from galleries in Milan and London, dinnerware from China, and a library of 25,000 books in a variety of languages.

[25] The surviving daughter, Anna, was a welcome joy to Hańska, and she trusted her care to a young governess named Henriette Borel who had moved to Wierzchownia from the Swiss town of Neuchâtel.

Hańska was intrigued by the glowing portrayal of the female protagonist, driven by true love to protect the object of her desire.

She also enjoyed Balzac's Physiologie du mariage (The Physiology of Marriage), also published in 1829, which heaps satirical scorn on husbands and celebrates the virtue of married women.

[28] When she read his 1831 novel La Peau de chagrin (The Magic Skin), however, Hańska was appalled by the coarse depiction of Foedora, the so-called "femme sans cœur" ("woman without a heart").

She felt that Balzac had lost the reverence shown in his earlier works, and worried that he had based Foedora on a real woman from his life.

[33] On 7 November she posted a seven-page letter filled with praise and flattery:Your soul embraces centuries, Monsieur; its philosophical concepts appear to be the fruit of long study matured by time; yet I am told that you are still young.

Your outward semblance probably does not reveal your brilliant imagination; you have to be moved, the sacred fire of genius has to be lit, if you are to show yourself as you really are, and you are what I feel you to be—a man superior in his knowledge of the human heart.

[11] In September 1833, after traveling to the French city of Besançon to find cheap paper for a publishing enterprise, Balzac crossed into Switzerland and registered at the Hôtel du Faucon under the name Marquis d'Entragues.

[42] Arriving in Geneva on 26 December,[11] the Christmas Eve, Balzac stayed at the Auberge de l'Arc, near the Maison Mirabaud where the Hański family had settled for the season.

"[43] At this time he began working on a philosophical novel, Séraphîta, about a hermaphroditic angel united by the love of a mortal man for a compassionate and sensual woman.

[48] Balzac's biographers agree that, despite his vows of loyalty to Hańska, he conducted affairs with several women during the 1830s, and may have fathered children with two of them.

[11][50] Meanwhile, Hańska was experiencing a renewal of religious interest, partly because her daughter's governess, Henriette Borel, left to join a nunnery in Paris.

Hańska taught her daughter Anna from the works of Christian scholars including Jean Baptiste Massillon and St. François de Sales.

[51] Her religious interest was more towards mysticism than mainstream religions; she corresponded with Baroness Barbara von Krüdener, and read on Rosicrucianism, Martinism and Swedenborgianism.

[59] Soon after she arrived in the Russian capital of St. Petersburg, in order to resolve some of the litigation issues surrounding her inheritance,[11] she took Anna to a recital by the Hungarian composer and pianist Franz Liszt.

[74] Having collected finery from his many travels, he searched across Europe for items to properly complete the furnishings: carpets from Smyrna, embroidered pillowcases from Germany, and a handle for the lavatory chain crafted from Bohemian glass.

Biographers disagree about truth of this story; Robb suggests it was "a convincing hysterical performance put on for the benefit of his jealous fiancée".

[87] Both Hańska and Balzac took ill after the wedding; she suffered from a severe attack of gout, for which her doctor prescribed an unusual treatment: "Every other day she has to thrust her feet into the body of a sucking-pig which has only just been slit open, because it is necessary that the entrails should be quivering.

Hańska nursed him constantly, as a stream of visitors – including the writers Victor Hugo and Henri Murger – came to pay their respects.

[93] Vincent Cronin attributes her absence to the nature of their relationship: "From the first day by the lakeside at Neuchâtel theirs had been a Romantic love and Eve wanted to guard it to the end against that terrible taint of corruption.

Several works had been left incomplete, and publishers inquired about releasing a final edition of his grand collection La Comédie humaine.

The writer Jules Amédée Barbey d'Aurevilly described her this way: "Her beauty was imposing and noble, somewhat massive, a little fleshy, but even in stoutness she retained a very lively charm which was spiced with a delightful foreign accent and a striking hint of sensuality.

"[98] Her affair with the man twenty years her junior was brief, but it provided a tremendous release to Hańska, who had spent decades with older men in various states of ill health.

On his recommendation, she turned creative control of Balzac's unfinished novels Le Député d'Arcis and Les Petits Bourgeois to another writer, Charles Rabou.

[11] In addition to Eveline, her daughter Anna, sister Alina, aunt Rozalia, first love (Tadeusz Wyleżyński), and several other figures that she introduced Balzac to or told him about, were also incorporated into his works.

[11] As Zygmunt Czerny notes, the "mysterious Pole" was criticized by some (Henry Bordeaux, Octave Mirbeau (La Mort de Balzac), Adolf Nowaczyński, Józef Ignacy Kraszewski, Charles Léger and Pierre Descaves), and praised by others (Philippe Bertault, Marcel Bouteron, Barbey d'Aurevilly, Sophie de Korwin-Piotrowska, Tadeusz Boy-Żeleński, Tadeusz Grabowski, Juanita Helm Floyd and André Billy).