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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau by Honore de Balzac: Sultans to all perfumers in France and in foreign cities, offering
them at the same time a discount of thirty per cent if they would buy
the two articles by the gross. The Paste and the Balm were, in
reality, worth more than other cosmetics of the sort; and they
captivated ignorant people by the distinctions they set up among the
temperaments. The five hundred perfumers of France, allured by the
discount, each bought annually from Birotteau more than three hundred
gross of the Paste and the Lotion,--a consumption which, if it gave
only a limited profit on each article, became enormous considered in
bulk. Cesar was then able to buy the huts and the land in the Faubourg
du Temple; he built large manufactories, and decorated his shop at
 Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau |