“Vous êtes libre”. Une citation de Madame Hanska

In January 1842 Balzac received a momentous piece of news: the Count Hanski, his lover Ève Hanska's husband, had died (their reciprocal passion dated back to 1832). Balzac hopes to marry her soon, but receives an enigmatic breaking-off letter, including an icy parting formula: “Vous êtes libre”. This sentence, whose threatening gravity is clear to Balzac, is a literary quotation referring to a crucial turning point in Madame de Staël's Corinne. Reading this sentence with all its implications throws a new light on the crisis between Balzac and his future wife.