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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Cousin Betty by Honore de Balzac: secret of your cowardly conduct with regard to the match I had planned
for Hortense--yes, cowardly!" she repeated, in answer to a gesture
from Crevel. "How can you load a poor girl, a pretty, innocent
creature, with such a weight of enmity? But for the necessity that
goaded me as a mother, you would never have spoken to me again, never
again have come within my doors. Thirty-two years of an honorable and
loyal life shall not be swept away by a blow from Monsieur Crevel----"
"The retired perfumer, successor to Cesar Birotteau at the /Queen of
the Roses/, Rue Saint-Honore," added Crevel, in mocking tones.
"Deputy-mayor, captain in the National Guard, Chevalier of the Legion
of Honor--exactly what my predecessor was!"
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