A Second Home
by Honore de Balzac
Translated by Clara Bell
DEDICATION
To Madame la Comtesse Louise de Turheim as a token of
remembrance and affectionate respect.
A SECOND HOME
The Rue du Tourniquet-Saint-Jean, formerly one of the darkest and most
tortuous of the streets about the Hotel de Ville, zigzagged round the
little gardens of the Paris Prefecture, and ended at the Rue Martroi,
exactly at the angle of an old wall now pulled down. Here stood the
turnstile to which the street owed its name; it was not removed till
1823, when the Municipality built a ballroom on the garden plot
adjoining the Hotel de Ville, for the fete given in honor of the Duc
d'Angouleme on his return from Spain.
The widest part of the Rue du Tourniquet was the end opening into the
Rue de la Tixeranderie, and even there it was less than six feet
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