It happened that Honore's enlistment in the army of litterateurs coincided with considerable changes in his parents' circumstances. His father had just been retired on a pension and had recently lost money in two investments. As there were a couple of daughters to be provided for, the family, for the sake of economy, quitted Paris and went to live at Villeparisis, six leagues distant from the capital, where a modest country-house had been bought. Honore, by dint of insistence, obtained permission to remain in Paris, where he would be freer to work and could more easily get into relations with publishers; and a meagrely furnished attic-study was rented for him at No. 9 Rue Lesdiguieres, a street near the Arsenal, still bearing the same name. A small monthly allowance was made him, just enough to keep him from starving; and an old woman, Mother Comin—the Iris-messenger, he facetiously called her—who had been in the family's service and was staying on in the city, undertook to pay him occasional visits and to report should he be in difficulties.
The novelty of his semi-independence caused him at first to look with cheerful eye on his narrow surroundings. To his sister he wrote in April 1819:—
"Here are some details about my way of living. I have taken a servant.
"A servant! What can you be thinking of!
"Yes; a servant. His name is as funny as that of Dr. Nacquart's domestic. The Doctor's is Tranquil; mine is Myself. He is a bad acquisition! . . . Myself is idle, clumsy, and improvident. When his master is hungry and thirsty, he has sometimes neither bread nor water to give him; he does not know how to protect himself against the wind, which blows through the door and window like Tulou through his flute, but less agreeably. As soon as I am awake, I ring for Myself, and he makes my bed. He sets to sweeping, and is not very deft in the exercise.
"Myself!
"Yes, Sir.
"Just look at the cobweb where that big fly is buzzing loud enough to deafen me, and at those bits of fluff under the bed, and at that dust on the windows blinding me.
"Why, sir, I don't see anything.
"Tut, tut! hold your tongue, impudence!