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.

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