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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Illustrious Gaudissart by Honore de Balzac: bourgeoisie,--a leader among the small proprietors, all of them
envious, jealous, delighted to catch up and retail gossip and
calumnies against the aristocracy; dragging things down to their own
level; and at war with all kinds of superiority, which they deposited
with the fine composure of ignorance. Monsieur Vernier--such was the
name of this great little man--was just finishing his breakfast, with
his wife and daughter on either side of him, when Gaudissart entered
the room through a window that looked out on the Loire and the Cher,
and lighted one of the gayest dining-rooms of that gay land.
"Is this Monsieur Vernier himself?" said the traveller, bending his
vertebral column with such grace that it seemed to be elastic.
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