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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Collection of Antiquities by Honore de Balzac: enough of life in Paris to feel no necessity to be upon his guard, no
need to keep a watch over his lightest words and glances. The
religious sentimentalism, which finds a broadly humorous commentary in
the after-thoughts of either speaker, puts the old-world French chat
of men and women, with its pleasant familiarity, its lively ease,
quite out of the question; they make love in a mist nowadays.
Victurnien was just sufficient of an unsophisticated provincial to
remain suspended in a highly appropriate and unfeigned rapture which
pleased the Duchess; for women are no more to be deceived by the
comedies which men play than by their own. Mme. de Maufrigneuse
calculated, not without dismay, that the young Count's infatuation was
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