Gaudissart II

A sardonic portrait of Parisian salesman , where the travelling salesman in Balzac’s tale of The Illustrious Gaudissart got his comeuppance at the hands of the wily Tourangian peasants, in Paris – a citadel of commerce with shops to rival Versailles – things are different. Balzac has coined the label Gaudissart to evoke the cunning masters of the art of salesmanship who inhabit these establishments in which architecture and the decorative arts conspire to bewitch the customer.