For the sake of all his colleagues' interests in the Ministry of Railways, Mornay had to firmly reject Thiers' request to review the Ministry's accounts.
No one in the Legislative Assembly present was a fool. Just looking at the Ministry's real estate, clubs, and leisure facilities acquired over the years could give a rough understanding of the internal accounts of the Ministry of Railways.
But the members of the Legislative Assembly simply didn't want to stir up a hornet's nest.
The Ministry of Railways was indeed not clean, but were they clean themselves?
If the big stick of a corruption investigation were to come down, eight or nine out of ten legislators would be killed by it themselves.
During the period of the Third Republic, there was one persistent young hothead who kept pushing for investigating corruption while in opposition, causing several consecutive cabinets to be brought down by him on charges of corruption, thus earning the nickname of a cabinet-toppling expert.
