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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Muse of the Department by Honore de Balzac: which ninety thousand formed the revenue from the lands he had
entailed. Having calculated that besides this net income he paid ten
thousand francs in taxes, three thousand in working expenses, ten
thousand to his wife, and twelve hundred to his mother-in-law, he
would say in the literary circles of Sancerre:
"I am reputed miserly, and said to spend nothing; but my outlay
amounts to twenty-six thousand five hundred francs a year. And I have
still to pay for the education of my two children! I daresay it is not
a pleasing fact to the Milauds of Nevers, but the second house of La
Baudraye may yet have as noble a center as the first.--I shall most
likely go to Paris and petition the King of the French to grant me the
The Muse of the Department |
