The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from An Old Maid by Honore de Balzac: tobacco, whom she proposed to render, by dint of care and kindness,
one of the best men in the world, although he was hampered with debts.
But it was only in the silence of night watches that these fantastic
marriages, in which she played the sublime role of guardian angel,
took place. The next day, though Josette found her mistress' bed in a
tossed and tumbled condition, Mademoiselle Cormon had recovered her
dignity, and could only think of a man of forty, a land-owner, well
preserved, and a quasi-young man.
The Abbe de Sponde was incapable of giving his niece the slightest aid
in her matrimonial manoeuvres. The worthy soul, now seventy years of
age, attributed the disasters of the French Revolution to the design
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