Who was Mathilde in Heinrich Heine’s life?

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Portrait of German poet Heinrich Heine, circa 1827, seated with one arm resting on his knee and wearing a dark coat over a white shirt. — Heinrich Heine Heinrich Heine, c. 1827.

In the life of the German author Heinrich Heine, Mathilde was the name he gave to Crescence Eugénie Mirat, an uneducated shopgirl whom he met in 1834. She became his loyal, if sometimes obstreperous, mistress before the couple married in 1841.1