Paraphrase: They are cattle in the fields, but we sit down to beef(boeuf). The new ruling class had built a cultural barrier against him by building their Friench against his own language. The phrase has always been used a little pejoratively and even facetiously by the lower class. The rebellion against a cultural dominance is still there. There is always a great danger, as Carlyle put it, that "words will harden into things for us."