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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Bureaucracy by Honore de Balzac: solely through Rabourdin's generosity, and was very certain that he
could never be promoted if the latter succeeded La Billardiere. Though
he knew himself incapable of important work, Dutocq was well aware
that in a government office incapacity was no hindrance to
advancement; La Billardiere's own appointment over the head of so
capable a man as Rabourdin had been a striking and fatal example of
this. Wickedness combined with self-interest works with a power
equivalent to that of intellect; evilly disposed and wholly self-
interested, Dutocq had endeavoured to strengthen his position by
becoming a spy in all the offices. After 1816 he assumed a marked
religious tone, foreseeing the favor which the fools of those days
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