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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Sons of the Soil by Honore de Balzac: country-places privileges exist which are obtained and preserved with
as much care as the merchants of a city display in getting theirs.
Mademoiselle Laguerre was one day walking in the garden, when she
overheard Tonsard, then a strapping fellow, say, "All I need to live
on, and live happily, is an acre of land." The kind creature,
accustomed to make others happy, gave him the acre of vineyard near
the gate of Blangy, in return for one hundred days' work (a delicate
regard for his feelings which was little understood), and allowed him
to stay at Les Aigues, where he lived with her servants, who thought
him one of the best fellows in Burgundy.
Poor Tonsard (that is what everybody called him) worked about thirty
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