Source note

FOEDORA (Comtesse), born about 1805. Of Russian lower class origin and wonderfully beautiful. Espoused perhaps morganatically by a great lord of the land. Left a widow she reigned over Paris in 1827. Supposed to have an income of eighty thousand francs. She received in her drawing-rooms all the notables of the period, and there "appeared all the works of fiction that were not published anywhere else." Raphael de Valentin was presented to the countess by Rastignac and fell desperately in love with her. But he left her house one day never to return, being definitely persuaded that she was "a woman without a heart." Her memory was cruel, and her address enough to drive a diplomat to despair. Although the Russian ambassador did not receive her, she had entry into the set of Mme. de Serizy; visited with Mme. de Nucingen and Mme. de Restaud; received the Duchesse de Carigliano, the haughtiest of the Bonapartist clique. She had listened to many young dandies, and to the son of a peer of France, who had offered her their names in exchange for her fortune. [The Magic Skin.]