Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 May 1893 — The French Bourgeosie. [ARTICLE]

The French Bourgeosie.

The bourgeosie is that immense body of the French nation which represents l’epargne, or, in other words, capitalized savings. The bourgeois is the man who has made his money cent by cent during the first three-quarters of his life, and who spends it in pretty much the same proportion during the last remaining quarter. As long as he works he is not a bourgeois. But as soon as he retires from business and lives on his income, however small it may be, he becomes Monsieur Bourgeois. To reach this goal has been his oue ambition through a lifetime of want and labor, and I imagine Heaven itself would appear an almost superfluous recompense to those who have attained this stage of human felicity. The bourgeois thinks ot nothing, aspires to nothing, but to make money, not in a gay, off-hand, haphazard way, but ever cautiously, calculating over a centime or silently grasping after a penny. And the bourgeois in this case means the woman as well as the man, the wife as well as the husband, for both work on untiringly, attached by the same bonds to the yoke of 'labor, I remember once accompanying a friend to a confectioner’s. She was a wealthy American who spent money lavishly. On this particular occasion she paid an unusually larjfe bill, and while waiting for the change ate a tempting “fondant.” We were leaving the shop when she suddenly remembered it, and, turning to the saleswoman, with one of her beaming reception smiles, she said: “I have eaten two of your pretty bonbons; what do I owe you?” “Two cents,” answered the woman, unhesitatingly. Had not these two centimes been discounted already by the proprietor? No Frenchman throws away two sous on a client unwittingly; no more than a French client would think of eating two sous’ worth of candy without paying for it. Tne bourgeois knows too well what it costs to make two sous in an old country, and the rich man knows exactly the amount of pleasure he is entitled to expect from the same two sous—[The Marquise de San Carlo 9, in North American Review.