To Madame la Comtesse Bolognini,nee Vimercati.
If you remember,madame,the pleasure your conversation gave to a traveller by recalling Paris to his memory in Milan,you will not be surprised to find him testifying his gratitude for many pleasant evenings passed beside you by laying one of his works at your feet,and begging you to protect it with your name,as in former days that name protected the tales of an ancient writer dear to the Milanese.
You have an Eugenie,already beautiful,whose intelligent smile gives promise that she has inherited from you the most precious gifts of womanhood,and who will certainly enjoy during her childhood and youth all those happinesses which a rigid mother denied to the Eugenie of these pages.Though Frenchmen are taxed with inconstancy,you will find me Italian in faithfulness and memory.While writing the name of "Eugenie,"my thoughts have often led me back to that cool stuccoed salon and little garden in the Vicolo dei Cappucini,which echoed to the laughter of that dear child,to our sportive quarrels and our chatter.But you have left the Corso for the Tre Monasteri,and I know not how you are placed there;consequently,I am forced to think of you,not among the charming things with which no doubt you have surrounded yourself,but like one of those fine figures due to Raffaelle,Titian,Correggio,Allori,which seem abstractions,so distant are they from our daily lives.
If this book should wing its way across the Alps,it will prove to you the lively gratitude and respectful friendship of Your devoted servant,De Balzac.