The country-people would have died, he remarked, for Mademoiselle, whereas the general was laying up for himself a store of difficulties.
Gaubertin--and this trait is frequently to be seen in the majority of those professions in which the property of others can be taken by means not foreseen by the Code--considered himself a perfectly honest man.
In the first place, he had so long had possession of the money extorted from Mademoiselle Laguerre's farmers through fear, and paid in assignats, that he regarded it as legitimately acquired.

It was a mere matter of exchange.

He thought that in the end he should have quite as much risk with coin as with paper.

Besides, legally, Mademoiselle had no right to receive any payment except in assignats.

"Legally" is a fine, robust adverb, which bolsters up many a fortune! Moreover, he reflected that ever since great estates and land-agents had existed, that is, ever since the origin of society, the said agents had set up, for their own use, an argument such as we find our cooks using in this present day.
Here it is, in its simplicity:-- "If my mistress," says the cook, "went to market herself, she would have to pay more for her provisions than I charge her; she is the gainer, and the profits I make do more good in my hands than in those of the dealers." "If Mademoiselle," thought Gaubertin, "were to manage Les Aigues herself, she would never get thirty thousand francs a year out of it; the peasants, the dealers, the workmen would rob her of the rest.