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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Madame Firmiani by Honore de Balzac: Petersburg. Names of countries act like springs in their mind; press
them, and the ringing of their changes begins.
"That Madame Firmiani sees a great deal of the faubourg Saint-Germain,
doesn't she?" This from a person who desires to belong to the class
Distinguished. She gives the "de" to everybody,--to Monsieur Dupin
senior, to Monsieur Lafayette; she flings it right and left and
humiliates many. This woman spends her life in striving to know and do
"the right thing"; but, for her sins, she lives in a the Marais, and
her husband is a lawyer,--a lawyer before the Royal courts, however.
"Madame Firmiani, monsieur? I do not know her." This man belongs to
the species Duke. He recognizes none but the women who have been
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