Prices are risen enormously, house-rent doubled within the last five or six years; all articles of luxury are very much dearer; the very gloves I wear cost twenty per cent more than I used to pay for gloves of the same quality.

How the people we meet live, and live so well, is an enigma that would defy AEdipus if AEdipus were not a Parisian.

But the main explanation is this: speculation and commerce, with the facilities given to all investments, have really opened more numerous and more rapid ways to fortune than were known a few years ago.
"Crowds are thus attracted to Paris, resolved to venture a small capital in the hope of a large one; they live on that capital, not on their income, as gamesters do.

There is an idea among us that it is necessary to seem rich in order to become rich.

Thus there is a general extravagance and profusion.