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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: remarkable facts in the history of that bourgeoisie. It will not be
the first time in history that conclusion has preceded facts.
In 1560, the houses of the rue de la Vieille-Pelleterie skirted the
left bank of the Seine, between the pont Notre-Dame and the pont au
Change. A public footpath and the houses then occupied the space
covered by the present roadway. Each house, standing almost in the
river, allowed its dwellers to get down to the water by stone or
wooden stairways, closed and protected by strong iron railings or
wooden gates, clamped with iron. The houses, like those in Venice, had
an entrance on /terra firma/ and a water entrance. At the moment when
the present sketch is published, only one of these houses remains to
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