Famous French Fictional Female

Honore de Balzac wrote a classic novel called "Eugenie Grandet." The eponymous  character is the only child of Monsieur Grandet, a wealthy miser. When her cousin Charles visits her, she falls in love with him & they promise to marry. However Charles has to leave on a business trip. Meanwhile Eugenie's parents pass away & she is left a wealthy heiress. These events occupy the major part of the book.

However Charles on his return wants to be released from his engagement to marry a lady more suitable for his social ambition. He is also in debt. Eugenie, in her magnanimity,  releases him & also pays his debts.

The real nobleness of Eugenie's character comes out at this point. Though very wealthy, she dresses simply & has a frugal lifestyle, donating munificently to the local church. Monsieur le Cure of the Church visits her & advises her either to enter the convent or marry. She prefers to enter the convent. But the priest advises her to marry &  remain in the world because of her great wealth which is being distributed to the needy. She agrees & accepts Monsieur de Bonfons, a local luminary, who paid court to her but stipulating to him not to insist on his conjugal rights, as her memories were permanent & not likely to fade. He agrees, satisfied by a wealthy wife, who may advance his social upward mobility. However, he passes away a few years later, leaving Eugenie a wealthier widow. So the novel ends with Eugenie at 33, still beautiful, but with all the dignity that is acquired by suffering, & the saintliness of a person who has kept her soul unspotted by contact with the world & spending the rest of her life in philanthrophy.

Eugenie's demeanour reminds one of the famous opening lines of George Eliot's "Middlemarch" in which the heroine, Dorothea Brooke is described thus: "She had that kind of beauty which seems to be thrown into relief by poor dress. She could wear sleeves not less bare of style than those in which the Blessed Virgin appeared to Italian painters; her profile as well as her stature & bearing seemed to gain the more dignity from her plain garments."