The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Domestic Peace by Honore de Balzac: royal patent. Now, as the Navarreins had not yet resettled in France,
it was sheer trickery that the young lawyer thus proposed to the old
lady by suggesting to her that she should petition for an estate
belonging to the elder branch of the family.
"Monsieur," said the old woman with deceptive gravity, "bring the
Comtesse de Vaudremont across to me. I promise you that I will reveal
to her the mystery of the interesting unknown. You see, every man in
the room has reached as great a curiosity as your own. All eyes are
involuntarily turned towards the corner where my protegee has so
modestly placed herself; she is reaping all the homage the women
wished to deprive her of. Happy the man she chooses for her partner!"
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