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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Maitre Cornelius by Honore de Balzac: them far more than they gave themselves to their lovers; often their
love cost blood, and to be their lover it was necessary to incur great
dangers. But the Marie of his dream made small defence against the
young seigneur's ardent entreaties. Which of the two was the reality?
Did the false apprentice in his dream see the true woman? Had he seen
in the hotel de Poitiers a lady masked in virtue? The question is
difficult to decide; and the honor of women demands that it be left,
as it were, in litigation.
At the moment when the Marie of the dream may have been about to
forget her high dignity as mistress, the lover felt himself seized by
an iron hand, and the sour voice of the grand provost said to him:--
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