a little poverty and difficulty would bring
him to submission; so, before leaving Paris for Villeparisis in 1819
she installed him in a poorly furnished _mansard_, No. 9, rue
Lesdiguieres, leaving an old woman, Madame Comin, who had been in the
service of the family for more than twenty years, to watch over him.
Balzac has doubtless depicted this woman in _Facino Cane_ as Madame
Vaillant, who in 1819-1820 was charged with the care of a young
writer, lodged in a _mansard_, rue Lesdiguieres.

After fifteen months of this life, his health became so much impaired
that his mother insisted on keeping him at home, where she cared for
him faithfully. On a former occasion Madame de Balzac had had her son
brought home to recuperate, for when he was sent away to _college_ at
an early age, his health became so impaired that he was hurriedly
returned to his home. Balzac probably refers to this event in his life
when he writes, in _Louis Lambert_, that the mother, alarmed by the
continuous fever of her son and his symptoms of _coma_, took him from
school at four or five hours' notice.

During the five years (1820-1825) that Balzac remained at home in
Villeparisis, he longed for the quiet freedom of his garret; he could
not adapt himself to the bustling family circle, nor reconcile himself
to the noise of the domestic machinery kept in motion by his vigilant
and indefatigable mother. She was of a nervous, excitable nature,
which she probably inherited from her mother, Madame Sallambier. She
imagined that he was ill, and of course there was no one to convince
her to the contrary. Had she known that while she thought she was
contributing everything to the happiness of those around her, she was
only doing the opposite, we may be sure that she of all women would
have been the most wretched.

Balzac having failed in his speculations as publisher and printer, was
aided by his mother financially, and she figured as one of his
principal creditors during the remainder of his life. (E. Faguet in
_Balzac_, is exaggerating in stating that Madame de Balzac sacrificed
her whole fortune for Honore, for much of her means was spent on her
favorite son, Henri.)

M. Auguste Fessart was a contemporary of the family, an observer of a
great part of the life of Honore, and his confidant on more than one
occasion. In his _Commentaires_ on the work entitled _Balzac, sa Vie
et ses Oeuvres_, by Madame Surville, he states that the portrait of
Madame de Balz