Ewelina Hańska Ewelina Hańska Eveline Hańska (Ewelina, née Rzewuska, 6 January c. 1805 – 11 April 1882) was a Polish noblewoman best known for her marriage to French novelist Honoré de Balzac. Born at the Wierzchownia estate in Volhynia, (now Ukraine) Hańska married landowner Wacław Hański (Wenceslas Hanski) 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
Stephen French Stephen French was born on 23 May 1844 in Marion County, Illinois, the son of Joseph Hartman French and Susannah Lemon Purcell. Stephen had four brothers and six sisters: Erasmus French (1846-1850); Charles Sims French (1848-1855); Elizabeth Jane (French) Charlton (1849-1930); Thomas Purcell French (1851-1929); Anna Sophia (French) Stokely (1854-1927); Laura C. French (1858-1939); Mary Emeline French (1861-1939); Martha Eveline French (1861-1861); Clotelle Camilla French (1865-1877); Eli Logan French (1866-1912). Stephen passed his boyhood at home until the second year of the Civil War when he enlisted in the 111th Illinois Volunteer Infantry. He served in the army until the