Eveline Hańska

Lady Eveline Hańska
Eveline Hańska, by Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller, 1835
Coat of arms	Krzywda
Husband	Wacław Hański Honoré de Balzac
Issue Anna Hańska
Family	Rzewuski (by birth) Hański (by marriage) Balzac (by marriage)
Father	Adam Wawrzyniec Rzewuski
Mother	Justyna Rdułtowska h. Drogosław
Born	6 January c. 1805 Pohrebyshche, Russian Empire
Died	11 April 1882 (aged 77) Paris, France
Buried	Père Lachaise Cemetery

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 expressed a deep mutual affection. In 1832, they met for the first time, in Switzerland. Soon afterward he began writing the novel Séraphîta, which includes a character based on Hańska.

After her husband died in 1841, a series of complications obstructed Hańska's marriage to Balzac. Chief of these was the estate and her daughter Anna's inheritance, both of which might be threatened if she married him. Anna married a Polish count, easing some of the pressure. About the same time, Hańska gave Balzac the idea for his 1844 novel Modeste Mignon. In 1850 they finally married, and moved to Paris, but he died five months later. Though she never remarried, she took several lovers, and died in 1882.

Hańska was the fourth of seven children born to Adam Wawrzyniec Rzewuski and his wife, Justyna Rzewuska (née Rdułtowska).Their family was established as Polish nobility, known for wealth and military prowess. One ancestor had imprisoned his own mother in a tower to extract his part of an inheritance. Hańska's great-grandfather, Wacław Rzewuski, was a famous writer and Grand Crown Hetman. When the Russian Empire gained control of lands owned by the family through the Partitions of Poland at the end of the 18th century, Rzewuski swore his allegiance to Catherine II. He was rewarded with a comfortable position in the ranks of the empire. Moving between assignments in Kiev, St. Petersburg, and elsewhere, he chose as his primary residence the village of Pohrebyszcze in the region of Volhynia.