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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Muse of the Department by Honore de Balzac: receipted bills. After sending her mother and the children away to the
Hotel de la Baudraye, she awaited Lousteau, dressed ready to leave the
house. When the deposed king of her heart came into dinner, she said:
"I have upset the pot, my dear. Madame de la Baudraye requests the
pleasure of your company at the /Rocher de Cancale/."
She carried off Lousteau, quite bewildered by the light and easy
manners assumed by the woman who till that morning has been the slave
of his least whim, for she too had been acting a farce for two months
past.
"Madame de la Baudraye is figged out as if for a first night," said he
--/une premiere/, the slang abbreviation for a first performance.
The Muse of the Department | 
