An excerpt from The Necklace
Guy de Maupassant
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1 When she sat down to dinner at her round table with its three-day-old cloth, and watched her husband opposite her lift the lid of the soup tureen
and exclaim, delighted: "Ah, a good homemade beef stew! There's nothing better." she would visualize elegant dinners with gleaming silver amid
tapestried walls peopled by knights and ladies and exotic birds in a fairy forest; she would think of exquisite dishes served on gorgeous china worth
thousands of francs, and of gallantries whispered and received with sphinx-like smiles while eating the pink flesh of trout or wings of grouse.
2 She had no proper wardrobe, no jewels, nothing. And those were the only things that she loved--she felt she was made for them. She would have
so loved to charm, to be envied, to be admired and sought after
She had a rich friend, an old school friend whom she refused to visit, because she suffered so keenly when she returned home. She would weep
whole days, with grief, regret, despair, and misery
What words are clues that this story involves aspects of French culture?