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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Juana by Honore de Balzac: lines, and the commandant of the city appointed, military
administration began. The place assumed a mongrel aspect. Though all
things were organized on a French system, the Spaniards were left free
to follow "in petto" their national tastes.
This period of pillage (it is difficult to determine how long it
lasted) had, like all other sublunary effects, a cause, not so
difficult to discover. In the marechal's army was a regiment, composed
almost entirely of Italians and commanded by a certain Colonel Eugene,
a man of remarkable bravery, a second Murat, who, having entered the
military service too late, obtained neither a Grand Duchy of Berg nor
a Kingdom of Naples, nor balls at the Pizzo. But if he won no crown he
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