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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Cousin Betty by Honore de Balzac: paternity myself. A hundred louis a year will satisfy me. By to-morrow
I must be Monsieur Coquet's successor and see my name on the list for
promotion in the Legion of Honor at the July fetes, or else--the
documentary evidence and my charge against you will be laid before the
Bench. I am not so hard to deal with after all, you see."
"Bless me, and such a pretty woman!" said the Justice of the Peace to
the police constable. "What a loss to the world if she should go mad!"
"She is not mad," said the constable sententiously. The police is
always the incarnation of scepticism.--"Monsieur le Baron Hulot has
been caught by a trick," he added, loud enough for Valerie to hear
him.
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