Ah!
I do not forget your motherly goodness, your divine sympathy for
those who suffer. . . . Well, then as soon as you wish to come to
Paris, you will come without even letting us know. You will come
to the Rue Fortunee exactly as to your own house, absolutely as I
used to go to Frapesle. I claim this as my right. I recall to your
mind what you said to me at Angouleme, when broken down after
writing _Louis Lambert_, ill, and as you know, fearing lest I
should go mad. I spoke of the neglect to which these unhappy ones
are abandoned. 'If you were to go mad, I would take care of you.'
Those words, your look, and your expression have never been
forgotten. All this is still living in me now, as in the month of
July 1832. It is in virtue of that word that I claim your promise
to-day, for I have almost gone mad with happiness. . . . When I
have been questioned here about my friendships you have been
named the first. I have described that fireside always burning,
which is called Zulma, and you have two sincere woman-friends
(which is an achievement), the Countess Mniszech and my wife."[*]

[*] Balzac is not exaggerating about the free use he made of her home,
for besides going there for rest, he worked there, and two of his
works, _La Grenadiere_ and _La Femme abandonnee_, were signed at
Angouleme.

His devotion is again seen in the beautiful words with which he
dedicates to her in 1838 _La Maison Nucingen_:

"To Madame Zulma Carraud.

"To whom, madame, but to you should I inscribe this work, to you
whose lofty and candid intellect is a treasury to your friends, to
you who are to me not only an entire public, but the most
indulgent of sisters? Will you deign to accept it as a token of a
friendship of which I am proud? You, and some few souls as noble
as your own, will grasp my thought in reading _la Maison Nucingen_
appended to _Cesar Birotteau_. Is there not a whole social
contrast between the two stories?

"DE BALZAC."

While hiding from his creditors, Balzac took refuge with Madame
Carraud at Issoudun, where he assumed the name of Madame Dubois to
receive his mail. Here he met some people whose names he made immortal
by describing them in his _Menage de Garcon_, called later _La
Rabouilleuse_. The priest Badinot introduced him to _La Cognette_, the
landlady to whom the vineyard peasant sold his wine. La