Balzac, in gratitude to the Duchesse de Dino for her friendship and unfailing kindness to him, one day presented her with the story of "L'Amour Masque" (Love in a Mask) in his own handwriting. The duchess was one of the few French aristocrats who in Balzac's time welcomed untitled authors to their salons, and her library boasted many such offerings from the literary men of her day. She placed Balzac's unpublished book on her shelves by the side of similarly unpublished poems by Alfred de Musset, and stories by Eugene Sue and others. The Balzac manuscript was incased in a finely tooled binding of great richness and beauty, bearing the _ex libris_ of the ducal family. For more than half a cen…
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