[Bureaucracy by Honore de Balzac]@TWC D-Link book
Bureaucracy

CHAPTER III
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There are two kinds of supernumeraries, or hangers-on,--one poor, the other rich.

The poor one is rich in hope and wants a place, the rich one is poor in spirit and wants nothing.

A wealthy family is not so foolish as to put its able men into the administration.

It confides an unfledged scion to some head-clerk, or gives him in charge of a directory who initiates him into what Bilboquet, that profound philosopher, called the high comedy of government; he is spared all the horrors of drudgery and is finally appointed to some important office.

The rich supernumerary never alarms the other clerks; they know he does not endanger their interests, for he seeks only the highest posts in the administration.


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