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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Vicar of Tours by Honore de Balzac: salons which Mademoiselle Gamard frequented, there was at the bottom
of the quarrel a class sentiment with all its jealousies. It was the
old Roman struggle of people and senate in a molehill, a tempest in a
teacup, as Montesquieu remarked when speaking of the Republic of San
Marino, whose public offices are filled by the day only,--despotic
power being easily seized by any citizen.
But this tempest, petty as it seems, did develop in the souls of these
persons as many passions as would have been called forth by the
highest social interests. It is a mistake to think that none but souls
concerned in mighty projects, which stir their lives and set them
foaming, find time too fleeting. The hours of the Abbe Troubert fled
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