Since I read Père Goriot in an old used hardbook, for this one I will allow myself the digital version, which turned out to be free. If it fails as a reading experience, I look for the hard back version.
Balzac had been writing for a decade but he still had not made it big when he wrote this. He had only gotten his first works in print. Sarrasine was one of the very first, and along with some others, he would group Sarrasine among his works he called "Scènes de la vie privée" (Scenes of Private Life).
Making it big would require another year, until 1831. He was living in Paris and spent time in the salons of Madame Récamier. (1777-1849)
A native of Lyon, she was the only child of Jean Bernard, the King's counsellor and a notary, and his wife, the former Julie Matton. Her father became, in 1784, the receiver of finance. She was educated at the Couvent de la Déserte in Lyon briefly, after which her family moved to Paris. The name "Juliette" came about as a diminutive of "Julie".[3] Beautiful, accomplished, and with a love of literature, Récamier was described as shy and modest by nature. [WP]Selection (p 5):
Have you ever met one of those women whose startling beauty defies the assaults of time, and who seem at thirty-six more desirable than they could have been fifteen years earlier? Their faces are impassioned souls; they fairly sparkle; each feature gleams with intelligence; each possesses a brilliancy of its own, especially in the light. Their captivating eyes attract or repel, speak or are silent; their gait is artlessly seductive; their voices unfold the melodious treasure of the most coquettishly sweet and tender tones...To love one of those omnipotent sirens is to stake one's life, is it not? And that, perhaps, is why we love them so passionately! Such was the Comtesse de Lanty.
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