Second Part Chapter 48

Whereas now my fortune is secured on the Budget. In place of paying
taxes to the State, I receive from it, every half-year, in my own
person, and free from cost, thirty thousand francs in thirty notes,
handed over the counter to me by a dapper little clerk at the
Treasury, who smiles when he sees me coming!

Supposing the nation went bankrupt? Well, to begin with:

'Tis not mine to see trouble so far from my door.

At the worst, too, the nation would not dock me of more than half my
income, so I should still be as well off as before my investment, and
in the meantime I shall be drawing a double income until the
catastrophe arrives. A nation doesn't become bankrupt more than once
in a century, so I shall have plenty of time to amass a little capital
out of my savings. And finally, is not the Comte de l'Estorade a peer of this July
semi-republic? Is he not one of those pillars of royalty offered by
the "people" to the King of the French? How can I have qualms with a
friend at Court, a great financier, head of the Audit Department? I
defy you to arraign my sanity! I am almost as good at sums as your
citizen king. Do you know what inspires a woman with all this arithmetic? Love, my
dear! Alas! the moment has come for unfolding to you the mysteries of my
conduct, the motives of which have baffled even your keen sight, your
prying affection, and your subtlety. I am to be married in a country
village near Paris. I love and am loved. I love as much as a woman can
who knows love well. I am loved as much as a woman ought to be by the
man she adores.