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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Country Doctor by Honore de Balzac: gridiron. We may put a bold front on it, but everything is against us,
although the army still performs prodigies of valor. Whole nations
fought against nations in tremendous battles, at Dresden, Lutzen, and
Bautzen, and then it was that France showed extraordinary heroism, for
you must all of you bear in mind that in those times a stout grenadier
only lasted six months.
"We always won the day, but the English were always on our track,
putting nonsense into other nations' heads, and stirring them up to
revolt. In short, we cleared a way through all these mobs of nations;
for wherever the Emperor appeared, we made a passage for him; for on
the land as on the sea, whenever he said, 'I wish to go forward,' we
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