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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from A Distinguished Provincial at Paris by Honore de Balzac: this clue, as a child holds a cockchafer by a string. Lucien's flight
was circumscribed. The words, "He is one of us, he is sound,"
accidentally overheard but three days ago in Mlle. de Touches' salon,
had turned his head. The Duc de Lenoncourt, the Duc de Navarreins, the
Duc de Grandlieu, Rastignac, Blondet, the lovely Duchesse de
Maufrigneuse, the Comte d'Escrignon, and des Lupeaulx, all the most
influential people at Court in fact, had congratulated him on his
conversion, and completed his intoxication.
"Then there is no more to be said," d'Arthez rejoined. "You, of all
men, will find it hard to keep clean hands and self-respect. I know
you, Lucien; you will feel it acutely when you are despised by the
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