Les Liaisons dangereuses (Dangerous Liaisons) Society and Class Quotes

The Marquise is referring to her chambermaid, whose mother was her own nursemaid as a child. She makes it clear that this doesn't blur the social class connections between them, even if the girl feels it does. It's usually the less privileged to look for that social upward mobility. The aristocratic class is only interested in protecting its status.

Madame de Volanges' concern is whether an arranged marriage to a rich man is really preferable to her daughter's choice to marry another man who's from a good family, but not wealthy. What good is it to be rich and privileged if you can't do what you want? Actually, among the wealthy, very few marriages were love matches; they were arranged mostly for social and financial advantage or to cement alliances between families. That's why so many married people took lovers.

Probably not all Paris. It's safe to say that most people in Paris, unaware of the latest misfortune to befall the affluent, don't count as people in Valmont's reckoning.