 The novel opens with an extended description of the Maison Vauquer , a boarding house in Paris ' rue Neuve @-@ Sainte @-@ Geneviève covered with vines , owned by the widow Madame Vauquer . The residents include the law student Eugène de Rastignac , a mysterious agitator named Vautrin , and an elderly retired vermicelli @-@ maker named Jean @-@ Joachim Goriot . The old man is ridiculed frequently by the other boarders , who soon learn that he has bankrupted himself to support his two well @-@ married daughters . 
