The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Illustrious Gaudissart by Honore de Balzac: betook himself to the life-insurance company, where he learned the
intricacies of financial diplomacy. His aptitude and his memory were
prodigious; so that he was able to start on his peregrinations by the
15th of April, the date at which he usually opened the spring
campaign. Two large commercial houses, alarmed at the decline of
business, implored the ambitious Gaudissart not to desert the article
Paris, and seduced him, it was said, with large offers, to take their
commissions once more. The king of travellers was amenable to the
claims of his old friends, enforced as they were by the enormous
premiums offered to him.
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