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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Scenes from a Courtesan's Life by Honore de Balzac: he must have mingled in the out-at-elbows society of people living on
a humble scale. He expressed excessive disgust for the criminal police
corps; for, under the Empire, he had belonged to Fouche's police, and
looked upon him as a great man. Since the suppression of this
Government department, he had devoted his energies to the tracking of
commercial defaulters; but his well-known talents and acumen made him
a valuable auxiliary, and the unrecognized chiefs of the political
police had kept his name on their lists. Contenson, like his fellows,
was only a super in the dramas of which the leading parts were played
by his chief when a political investigation was in the wind.
"Go 'vay," said Nucingen, dismissing his secretary with a wave of the
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