Career
She was the mistress of Honoré de Balzac, to whom she gave a daughter, Marie-Caroline Du Fresnay (b 4 June 1834), the only child of the French author She"s also the mother of French knight Ange Du Fresnay and the ancestor of French writer and silent film director Guy Du Fresnay as well as of French contemporary essayist and economist Philippe Du Fresnay. Her life inspired Honoré de Balzac"s most famous novel Eugénie Grandet, which depicted in part her family, who was living at the time in the French city of Sartrouville.
Her marriage to Charles Antoine Du Fresnay, son of Charles Du Fresnay, former mayor of Sartrouville (portrayed as "Charles Grandet, nephew of the former mayor of Saumur" in Eugénie Grandet) had been a failure from the start, with a 23-year age difference between them.
In this letter, Balzac reveals that the young woman had just come to tell him she was pregnant. In 1839, she appears as the dedicatee of the second edition of Honoré de Balzac"s Eugenie Grandet under the pseudonym "Maria", which was her nickname in her social circle.
In 1850, she would inherit a statue of French sculptor Francois Girardon from Honoré de Balzac, which confirmed the rumor of his paternity. However, the link was only confirmed in 1946, when Maria"s grandson Charles du Fresnay told French journalist and historian Roger Pierrot that Marie"s nickname used to be "Maria".