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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Catherine de Medici by Honore de Balzac: Straffords of England, the murderers of Thomas a Becket, the Jacques
Coeurs, the Jeanne d'Arcs, the Richelieus, Dantons, Bonchamps,
Talmonts, and also the Clements, Chabots, and others.
The dauphin was poisoned in the same manner, and possibly by the same
drug which afterwards served MADAME under Louis XIV. Pope Clement VII.
had been dead two years; Duke Alessandro, plunged in debauchery,
seemed to have no interest in the elevation of the Duc d'Orleans;
Catherine, then seventeen, and full of admiration for her father-in-
law, was with him at the time; Charles V. alone appeared to have an
interest in his death, for Francois I. was negotiating for his son an
alliance which would assuredly have aggrandized France. The count's
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