Frères Goncourt: How can you tell someone is from the provinces?

How do you recognize someone from the provinces? From their constant wild fear of being ridiculed, a terror that does not exist for a Parisian.

À quoi reconnaît-on un provincial? À leur peur effarée et éternelle du ridicule, terreur qui n'existe pas pour le Parisien.

  --Edmond et Jules Goncourt in their joint diary, 1 January 1865