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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: know. 'Rivers,' said Pascal, 'are walking markets.' We must have
markets. Markets depend on embankments, tremendous earth-works; earth-
works employ the laboring-classes; hence loans, which find their way
back, in the end, to the pockets of the poor. Voltaire said, 'Canaux,
canards, canaille!' But the government has its own engineers; you
can't get a finger in the matter unless you get on the right side of
them; for the Chamber,--oh, monsieur, the Chamber does us all the harm
in the world! It won't take in the political question hidden under the
financial question. There's bad faith on one side or the other. Would
you believe it? there's Keller in the Chamber: now Francois Keller is
an orator, he attacks the government about the budget, about canals.
Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau |
