By Honore De Balzac

Translated by Ellen Marriage

To the great and illustrious Geoffroy Saint Hilaire, a token of admiration for his works and genius. DE BALZAC.

FATHER GORIOT

Mme. Vauquer ( nee de Conflans) is an elderly person, who for the past forty years has kept a lodging house in the Rue Nueve Sainte Genevieve, in the district that lies between the Latin Quarter and the Faubourg Saint Marcel. Her house (known in the neighborhood as the Maison Vauquer ) receives men and women, old and young, and no word has ever been breathed against her respectable establishment; but, at the same time, it must be said that as a matter of fact no young woman has been under her roof for thirty years, and that if a young man stays there for any length of time it is a sure sign that his allowance must be of the slenderest. In 1819, however, the time when this drama opens, there was an almost penniless young girl among Mme. Vauquer's boarders.