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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan by Honore de Balzac: During this short conversation Madame de Cadignan was protected by
Madame d'Espard, whose protection was like that of the lightning-rod
which draws the flash. When d'Arthez returned to the general
conversation Maxime de Trailles was saying:--
"With Diane, depravity is not an effect but a cause; perhaps she owes
that cause to her exquisite nature; she doesn't invent, she makes no
effort, she offers you the choicest refinements as the inspiration of
a spontaneous and naive love; and it is absolutely impossible not to
believe her."
This speech, which seemed to have been prepared for a man of
d'Arthez's stamp, was so tremendous an arraignment that the company
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