|
The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Two Brothers by Honore de Balzac: explain my position to Madame la Dauphine. At the time of the
marriage, it was a question of saving to the family a million of
francs which my uncle had left by will to that person. Happily, my
wife took to drinking; at her death, I come into possession of that
million, which is now in the hands of Mongenod and Sons. I have thirty
thousand francs a year in the five per cents, and my landed property,
which is entailed, brings me in forty thousand more. If, as I am led
to suppose, Monsieur de Soulanges gets a marshal's baton, I am on the
high-road with my title of Comte de Brambourg, to becoming general and
peer of France. That will be the proper end of an aide-de-camp of the
Dauphin."
|
