“She shortly recovered herself, retaining that politeness and perfect gentility of manner that had never forsaken her through her long malady.”

“No longer do these men feel any onus towards accommodating a lady, nor any deference or gentility towards the fairer sex.”

“However, Madame could always have her pot au feu, kept two nice country lasses, one as cook and the other as fille-de-chambre, and had once a year the new fashions from Paris, to demonstrate her gentility.”

“Since drinking coffee socially was something that gentility and the aristocracy did, the middle classes could prove their own respectability and gentility by doing the same.”