FATHER GORIOT

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.




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