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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Sons of the Soil by Honore de Balzac: even her eyes might be opened and she should sell Les Aigues and
return to Paris.
This system of "pickings" was, alas! the cause of Paul-Louis Carter's
assassination; he committed the mistake of advertising the sale of his
estate and allowing it to be known that he should take away his wife,
on whom a number of the Tonsards of Lorraine were battening. Fearing
to lose Madame des Aigues, the marauders on the estate forbore to cut
the young trees, unless pushed to extremities by finding no branches
within reach of shears fastened to long poles. In the interests of
robbery, they did as little harm as they could; although, during the
last years of Madame's life, the habit of cutting wood became more and
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