Lily of the Valley

The creator of ''Human Comedy'' brings his ins ight to a portrait of a lady and a love affair set in the Lo ire Valley. The Lily of the Valley is one of Balzac''s person al favourites amoungst his innumerable novels
Le Lys dans la Vallée (English: The Lily of the Valley) is an 1835 novel about love and society by French novelist and playwright Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850). It concerns the affection — emotionally vibrant but never consummated — between Félix de Vandenesse and Henriette de Mortsauf. It is part of his series of novels (or Roman-fleuve) known as La Comédie humaine (The Human Comedy), which parodies and depicts French society in the period of the Bourbon Restoration and the July Monarchy (1815–1848). In his novel he also mentions the château Azay-le-Rideau, which can still be visited today.
Henriette de Mortsauf was modelled on Balzac's close friend Laure Antoinette de Berny (née Hinner), a woman 22 years his senior who greatly encouraged his early career. Mme. de Berny died shortly after reading the completed novel — in which Henriette also dies.
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