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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Bureaucracy by Honore de Balzac: power. Now the period when effeminacy succeeds to vigor presents a
contrast that is far more dangerous in France than in other countries.
As a general thing, ministers who were old before they entered office
have proved second or third rate, while those who were taken young
have been an honor to European monarchies and to the republics whose
affairs they have directed. The world still rings with the struggle
between Pitt and Napoleon, two men who conducted the politics of their
respective countries at an age when Henri de Navarre, Richelieu,
Mazarin, Colbert, Louvois, the Prince of Orange, the Guises,
Machiavelli, in short, all the best known of our great men, coming
from the ranks or born to a throne, began to rule the State. The
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