I can understand that a man should be blinded by an idea for a moment, but to nurse it up for six or seven years, that's a thing I cannot comprehend! You want to reduce the budget,--a vulgar and commonplace idea! The budget ought, on the contrary, to reach two hundred millions.

Then, indeed, France would be great.

If you want a new system let it be one of loans, as Monsieur de Nucingen keeps saying.

The poorest of all treasuries is the one with a surplus that it never uses; the mission of a minister of finance is to fling gold out of the windows.

It will come back to him through the cellars; and you, you want to hoard it! The thing to do is to increase the offices and all government employments, instead of reducing them! So far from lessening the public debt, you ought to increase the creditors.