The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Paz by Honore de Balzac: French priests, who had emigrated to Brussels during the Revolution,
showed the utmost horror of each other, and when one of them was asked
why, he replied with a glance at his companion in misery: "Why?
because he's a Jansenist!" Dante would gladly have stabbed a Guelf had
he met him in exile. This explains the virulent attacks of the French
against the venerable Prince Adam Czartoryski, and the dislike shown
to the better class of Polish exiles by the shopkeeping Caesars and
the licensed Alexanders of Paris.
In 1834, therefore, Adam Mitgislas Laginski was something of a butt
for Parisian pleasantry.
"He is rather nice, though he is a Pole," said Rastignac.
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