Balzac's Handsome Page
Mme Marbouty

Mme Arsène Arüss will be publishing a book these days, with the publisher Chiberre, in which she collects Balzac's relationships with a little provincial girl he loved and who would appear in his work under the name "The Muse of the Department."
The great writer took her with him, in male disguise, on his first trip to Italy, in 1834. From this work, we extract these few pages:
Balzac did not leave alone; a woman accompanied him; a handsome page. She followed him, unfortunately; henceforth, she would enter the ups and downs, the terrifying rays and shadows in which Balzac himself moved: she followed him, one might say, to life and death, for she was dug up every day and stoned anew every evening. The pretty page's name was Madame Marbouty, born Caroline-Sophie-Julie Pénifiaud, from an excellent Berry family. Through her mother, she was related to the La Coste family mentioned in the Bourges coat of arms in 1700. She readily took their name and greatly appreciated being called Madame de Marbouty. Born in 1803, she died in 1883 at the age of eighty. She was married at a very young age to Jacques Marbouty, clerk of the courts of Limoges. Two daughters were born from this union.
Madame Marbouty was charming. This is attested not only by Balzac, who depicted her in one of his works, calling her an angel of grace and beauty; but also by the description given by Mr. René Laruelle, the learned collector of female portraits and biographies. He knew her around 1878 or 1880, when Madame Marbouty was over seventy-six.
She must have been attractive, says M. René Laruelle; her white hair framed two large, very beautiful, deeply slitted black eyes, whose eyelids had the peculiarity that, being slightly dilated towards the temples, this gave her a frightened air; a physiologically rather bizarre detail, she claimed that when there was, for whatever reason, a brawl or bloody quarrel, she felt unwell, and if it was a battle where much blood was shed, she almost fell into catalepsy.
A friend of Jules Sandeau and George Sand, Madame Marbouty, for this trip to Italy (whether whim, convenience, or a desire for anonymity) donned men's clothing and, disguised in this way as a young man, Balzac took her everywhere with him. He presented her, under the name "Marcel," to the Countess of Saint-Thomas and Countess Maffei, where the beauty of this page did not go unnoticed. Count Sclopis da Salerano, a famous Piedmontese statesman, sent Balzac a farewell letter, ending with these words: "I beg you not to forget me with your charming traveling companion; our sex would not dare seriously claim him for fear of losing him in the other; tell him to clarify this mystery for us; whether it is attributed to devotion or independence, it only excites our attention more keenly; if you do not disdain this attention, we will have the answer to the enigma."

Arsène Arüss.