“The bourgeois, for his part, possessed neither of the inordinate ambitions of the great nor of the patience of the poor, would seem to have to remain ignorant both of the sins of whose who exalted themselves and of the merits of those who humbled themselves. Bossuet, speaking of this world, complains that the "license of great fortunes exceeds all bounds." This, he says, leads to "those prevailing sins which are not satisfied to be tolerated, or even excused, but which seek even to be applauded."”

Source: The Bourgeois: Catholicism vs. Capitalism in Eighteenth-Century France (1927), p. 138

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Bernard Groethuysen20

French literary historian, translator and writer 1880–1946

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