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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Marriage Contract by Honore de Balzac: daughter's beauty to impose conditions and allow you only that which
she cannot prevent you from having; namely, the daughter's fortune
from her father. We old people know the importance of inquiring
closely, What has he? What has she? I advise you therefore to give
particular instructions to your notary. The marriage contract, my dear
child, is the most sacred of all duties. If your father and your
mother had not made their bed properly you might now be sleeping
without sheets. You will have children, they are the commonest result
of marriage, and you must think of them. Consult Maitre Mathias our
old notary."
Madame de Maulincour departed, having plunged Paul into a state of
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