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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Deserted Woman by Honore de Balzac: fashions in plate, furniture, and equipages, as in language and manner
of life. This is a kind of ancient state, moreover, that suits
passably well with provincial thrift. The good folk are, in fact, the
lords of the manor of a bygone age, /minus/ the quitrents and heriots,
the pack of hounds and the laced coats; full of honor among
themselves, and one and all loyally devoted to princes whom they only
see at a distance. The historical house /incognito/ is as quaint a
survival as a piece of ancient tapestry. Vegetating somewhere among
them there is sure to be an uncle or a brother, a lieutenant-general,
an old courtier of the Kings's, who wears the red ribbon of the order
of Saint-Louis, and went to Hanover with the Marechal de Richelieu:
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