What is cyrus discussing in this passage?

as king of medivalia, you are constantly strapped for funds to pay your army. your chief economic wizard suggests the following plan: "when you collect your tax payments, insist on being paid in gold coins. take these gold coins, melt them down, and remint them with an extra 10 percent of brass thrown in. you will then have 10 percent more money than you started with."

chapter i -- paris: september, 1792

a surging, seething, murmuring crowd of beings that are human only in name, for to the eye and ear they seem naught but savage creatures, animated by vile passions and by the lust of vengeance and of hate.

during the greater part of the day the guillotine had been kept busy at its ghastly work: all that france had boasted of in the past centuries, of ancient names, and blue blood, had paid toll to her desire for liberty and for fraternity.

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where is the poem at?