Cognette, some
of whose relatives are still living, plays a minor role in the
_Comedie humaine_. Her real name was Madame Houssard; her husband,
whom Balzac incorrectly called "Pere Cognet," kept a little cabaret in
the rue du Bouriau. "Mere Cognette," who lost her husband about 1835,
opened a little cafe at Issoudun during the first years of her
widowhood. Balzac was an intermittent and impecunious client of hers;
he would enter her shop, quaff a cup of coffee, execrable to the
palate of a connoisseur like him, and "chat a bit" with the good old
woman who probably unconsciously furnished him with curious material.

The coffee drunk, the chat over, Balzac would strike his pockets, and
declaring they were empty, would exclaim: "Upon my word, Mere
Cognette, I have forgotten my purse, but the next time I'll pay for
this with the rest!" This habit gave "Mere Cognette" an extremely
mediocre estimate of the novelist, and she retained a very bad
impression of him. Upon learning that he had, as she expressed it,
"put me in one of his books," she conceived a violent resentment which
ended only with her death (1855). "The brigand," she exclaimed, "he
would have done better to pay me what he owes me!"

Another poor old woman, playing a far more important role in Balzac's
work, lived at Issoudun and was called "La Rabouilleuse." For a long
time, she had been the servant and mistress of a physician in the
town. This wretched creature had an end different to the one Balzac
gave his Rabouilleuse, but just as miserable, for having grown old,
sick, despoiled and without means, she did not have the patience to
wait until death sought her, but ended her miserable existence by
throwing herself into a well.

The doctor, it seems, at his death had left her a little home and some
money, but his heirs had succeeded in robbing her of it entirely.
--Perhaps this story is the origin of the contest of Dr. Rouget's
heirs with his mistress.

This Rabouilleuse had a daughter who inherited her name, there being
nothing else to inherit; she was a dish washer at the Hotel de la
Cloche, where Balzac often dined while at Issoudun. Can it be that he
saw her there and learned from her the story of her mother?

Balzac was acquainted also with Madame Carraud's sister, Madame
Philippe Nivet. M. Nivet was an important merchant of Limoges, living
in a pretty, historical home there. It was in this home that Balzac
visited early in his literary career, goi