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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Chouans by Honore de Balzac: Barbette was the whole house. The most obvious and sumptuous object
was a vast fireplace with a /mantle/-shelf of blue granite. The
etymology of that word was shown by a strip of green serge, edged with
a pale-green ribbon, cut in scallops, which covered and overhung the
whole shelf, on which stood a colored plaster cast of the Holy Virgin.
On the pedestal of the statuette were two lines of a religious poem
very popular in Brittany:--
"I am the mother of God,
Protectress of the sod."
Behind the Virgin a hideous image, daubed with red and blue under
pretence of painting, represented Saint-Labre. A green serge bed of
The Chouans |
