In that fund the State, according to Rabourdin, became a stockholder, just as it persisted in being a land-holder and a manufacturer.

To bring about these reforms without too roughly jarring the existing state of things or incurring a Saint-Bartholomew of clerks, Rabourdin considered that an evolution of twenty years would be required.
Such were the thoughts maturing in Rabourdin's mind ever since his promised place had been given to Monsieur de la Billardiere, a man of sheer incapacity.

This plan, so vast apparently yet so simple in point of fact, which did away with so many large staffs and so many little offices all equally useless, required for its presentation to the public mind close calculations, precise statistics, and self-evident proof.
Rabourdin had long studied the budget under its double-aspect of ways and means and of expenditure.

Many a night he had lain awake unknown to his wife.

But so far he had only dared to conceive the plan and fit it prospectively to the administrative skeleton; all of which counted for nothing,--he must gain the ear of a minister capable of appreciating his ideas.