Second Part Chapter 48

THE BARONNE DE MACUMER TO THE COMTESSE DE L'ESTORADE
October 15, 1833.

Yes, Renee, it is quite true; you have been correctly informed. I
have sold my house, I have sold Chantepleurs, and the farms in
Seine-et-Marne, but no more, please! I am neither mad nor ruined,
I assure you. Let us go into the matter. When everything was wound up, there
remained to me of my poor Macumer's fortune about twelve hundred
thousand francs. I will account, as to a practical sister, for every
penny of this.

I put a million in the Three per Cents when they were at fifty, and so
I have got an income for myself of sixty thousand francs, instead of
the thirty thousand which the property yielded. Then, only think what
my life was.

Six months of the year in the country, renewing leases,
listening to the grumbles of the farmers, who pay when it pleases
them, and getting as bored as a sportsman in wet weather. There was
produce to sell, and I always sold it at a loss. Then, in Paris, my
house represented a rental of ten thousand francs; I had to invest my
money at the notaries; I was kept waiting for the interest, and could
only get the money back by prosecuting; in addition I had to study the
law of mortgage. In short, there was business in Nivernais, in
Seine-et-Marne, in Paris--and what a burden, what a nuisance, what a
vexing and losing game for a widow of twenty-seven!