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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Unconscious Comedians by Honore de Balzac: "This evening you shall sup as they feasted at Belshazzar's; and there
you shall see our Paris, our own particular Paris, playing lansquenet,
and risking a hundred thousand francs at a throw without winking."
A quarter of an hour later the citadine stopped at the foot of the
steps going up to the Chamber of Deputies, at that end of the Pont de
la Concorde which leads to discord.
"I thought the Chamber unapproachable?" said the provincial, surprised
to find himself in the great lobby.
"That depends," replied Bixiou; "materially speaking, it costs thirty
sous for a citadine to approach it; politically, you have to spend
rather more. The swallows thought, so a poet says, that the Arc de
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