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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Vendetta by Honore de Balzac: denying his political faith, anxious even to confess it, the old baron
remained in Paris in the midst of his enemies. Ginevra Piombo was all
the more open to condemnation because she made no secret of the grief
which the second Restoration caused to her family. The only tears she
had so far shed in life were drawn from her by the twofold news of
Napoleon's captivity on the "Bellerophon," and Labedoyere's arrest.
The girls of the aristocratic group of pupils belonged to the most
devoted royalist families in Paris. It would be difficult to give an
idea of the exaggerations prevalent at this epoch, and of the horror
inspired by the Bonapartists. However insignificant and petty Amelie's
action may now seem to be, it was at that time a very natural
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