In this paper Marcel Proust’s celebrated analysis of taste and distinction among the upper crust portrayed in À la recherche du temps perdu serves as an introduction to Pierre Bourdieu’s La Distinction and to more recent research into contemporary
Dutch elites. Finally, the prevailing image of the Dutch Republic as a state dominated by ‘burgers’ is called into question, for i t would seem that Dutch eighteenth-century culture in particular cannot be fully appreciated without taking into account some
of its more aristocratic aspects
