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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Unconscious Comedians by Honore de Balzac: fifty thousand armed men, without counting two hundred thousand
citizens who haven't a penny to live upon."
"Pooh," said Leon, "how about the fortifications?"
"Pie-crust; we can swallow them," replied Masson.
"In the first place, we sha'n't let the cannon in, and, in the second,
we've got a little machine more powerful than all the forts in the
world,--a machine, due to a doctor, which cured more people during the
short time we worked it than the doctors ever killed."
"How you talk!" exclaimed Gazonal, whose flesh began to creep at
Publicola's air and manner.
"Ha! that's the thing we rely on! We follow Saint-Just and
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