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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Modeste Mignon by Honore de Balzac: years of age, unable to decide on a satisfactory date. The
Cardinal d'Herouville flourished in the history of the Church at
least a century before the cardinal of whom we boast as our only
family glory,--for I take no account of lieutenant-generals, and
abbes who write trumpery little verses.
Moreover, I do not live in the magnificent villa Vilquin; there is
not in my veins, thank God, the ten-millionth of a drop of that
chilly blood which flows behind a counter. I come on one side from
Germany, on the other from the south of France; my mind has a
Teutonic love of reverie, my blood the vivacity of Provence. I am
noble on my father's and on my mother's side. On my mother's I
Modeste Mignon |
