“It was one thing to be despised by the country families of Angoulême, quite another by the aristocracy of Paris; by going out of their way on insult Lucien, the booby-squires had admitted his importance and treated him as a man: but for Mme d’Espard he simply did not exist. This was not a sentence, it was the refusal of justice. A deadly chill seized the poor poet when he saw that de Marsay was eyeing him from his glass, this lion of Paris let his eyeglass drop in such a way that to Lucien it suggested the blade of a guillotine.”
Honoré de Balzac, “Lost Illusions”
A Bird's Eye View of Fashion, Food, Travel, Culture, Beverage and Curiosity 