|
The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Catherine de Medici by Honore de Balzac: completed this change of government, he became alarmed at the evident
inconstancy of the people of Florence, and, fearing the vengeance of
Clement VII., he went to Lyon to superintend a vast house of business
he owned there, which corresponded with other banking-houses of his
own in Venice, Rome, France, and Spain. Here we find a strange thing.
These men who bore the weight of public affairs and of such a struggle
as that with the Medici (not to speak of contentions with their own
party) found time and strength to bear the burden of a vast business
and all its speculations, also of banks and their complications, which
the multiplicity of coinages and their falsification rendered even
more difficult than it is in our day. The name "banker" comes from the
|
