|
The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Domestic Peace by Honore de Balzac: and liberty.
One feature, and a characteristic one, of this unique period in our
history was an unbridled mania for everything glittering. Never were
fireworks so much in vogue, never were diamonds so highly prized. The
men, as greedy as the women of these translucent pebbles, displayed
them no less lavishly. Possibly the necessity for carrying plunder in
the most portable form made gems the fashion in the army. A man was
not ridiculous then, as he would be now, if his shirt-frill or his
fingers blazed with large diamonds. Murat, an Oriental by nature, set
the example of preposterous luxury to modern soldiers.
The Comte de Gondreville, formerly known as Citizen Malin, whose
|
