I never read the book if ill be honest but the atmosphere seems correct my good sir
D) "'It was worth at most only five hundred francs!'"
The way it is said with an exclamation point is they are surprised that it is worth that much.
That sentence is an example of parallel structure.
When there is repetition of a specific grammatical form in a sentence, parallelism or a parallel structure is produced. This occurs when you mantain the same pattern for every compared word or idea in your construction. This makes the idea easier to follow by the reader.
C) money because the kingdom needed money
