Rue de Vendôme is associated with Lucien de Rubempré’s lodging at a turning point in his collapse. It becomes a point of disorientation after gambling and drink, and then the place from which his friends set out to challenge the political course he intends to take.

Lucien’s Lodging and Disorientation

After leaving the gaming table, Lucien joins Étienne Lousteau for dinner and drinks. By nine o’clock he is so thoroughly drunk that he does not understand why the porter at Rue de Vendôme is sending him to Rue de la Lune. The contrast between the two addresses matters: Coralie has moved to a small three-room apartment on Rue de la Lune, near the Gymnase Theatre, and is waiting there for him. Rue de Vendôme is thus the wrong destination at the moment when Lucien most needs to find his way to her.

A Point of Departure for Confrontation

The next day, Daniel d’Arthez, Léon Giraud, and Michel Chrestien arrive to see Lucien after returning from Rue de Vendôme. They know of his situation and confront his plan to join the royalist press, arguing that his previous attacks on liberals, the Right, and the government make such a switch a betrayal of his character. The street is not described as the scene of that argument, but it connects Lucien’s lodging with the friends who come to oppose his decision.

The Street in the Sequence of Events

Rue de Vendôme belongs to a brief but consequential chain of movements: Lucien leaves the gambling table, loses his bearings after drinking, and fails to reach Coralie directly; afterward, his friends come from the street to urge him not to compound his reversals by changing political sides. The nearby Rue de la Lune, where Coralie has settled with the remaining resources she saved, offers a sharp contrast to the lodging Lucien cannot properly navigate. Rue de Vendôme therefore marks both his immediate disarray and the setting from which an appeal to his former loyalties takes shape.