AT THE CORNER OF A STREET WHICH NO LONGER EXISTS IN A PARIS WHICH NO LONGER EXISTS Few persons in the present day know how plain and unpretentious were thedwellings of the burghers of Paris in the sixteenth century, and how simpletheir lives. Perhaps this simplicity of habits and of thought was the cause ofthe grandeur of that old bourgeoisie which was certainly grand, free, andnoble,— more so, perhaps, than the bourgeoisie of the present day. Its historyis still to be written; it requires and it awaits a man of genius. This reflectionwill doubtless rise to the lips of every one after reading the almost unknownincident which forms the basis of this Study and is one of the most remarkablefacts in the history of that bourgeoisie. It will not be the first time in historythat conclusion has preceded facts...Honoré de Balzac was a French novelist and playwright. The novel sequence La Comédie humaine, which presents a panorama of post-Napoleonic French life, is generally viewed as his magnum opus.

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