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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Eugenie Grandet by Honore de Balzac: Grassins discounted bills of exchange, but at a frightful deduction of
interest. Few days ever passed that Monsieur Grandet's name was not
mentioned either in the markets or in social conversations at the
evening gatherings. To some the fortune of the old wine-grower was an
object of patriotic pride. More than one merchant, more than one
innkeeper, said to strangers with a certain complacency: "Monsieur, we
have two or three millionaire establishments; but as for Monsieur
Grandet, he does not himself know how much he is worth."
In 1816 the best reckoners in Saumur estimated the landed property of
the worthy man at nearly four millions; but as, on an average, he had
made yearly, from 1793 to 1817, a hundred thousand francs out of that
Eugenie Grandet |
