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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: apprentices, their workmen. The burghers had a chief in the "provost
of the merchants" who commanded them, and in the Hotel de Ville, a
palace where they possessed the right to assemble. In the famous
"burghers' parlor" their solemn deliberations took place. Had it not
been for the continual sacrifices which by that time made war
intolerable to the corporations, who were weary of their losses and of
the famine, Henri IV., that factionist who became king, might never
perhaps have entered Paris.
Every one can now picture to himself the appearance of this corner of
old Paris, where the bridge and quai still are, where the trees of the
quai aux Fleurs now stand, but where no trace remains of the period of
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