Ewelina Hańska

Who was Ewelina Hańska?

Eveline Hańska was a Polish noblewoman best known for her marriage to French novelist Honoré de Balzac. Born at the Wierzchownia estate in Volhynia, Hańska married landowner Wacław Hański when she was a teenager. 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, both of which might be threatened if she married him. Anna married a Polish count, easing some of the pressure. About the same time, Hańska gave Balzac the idea for his 1844 novel Modeste Mignon. In 1850 they married and moved to Paris, but he died five months later. Though she never remarried, she took several lovers, and died in 1882.