The great social staircase led to several stories; each man could ascend every step of his own flight, but he could not mount above it; the landing reached, he found closed doors and nearly insurmountable barriers.

The story above was reserved to its own inhabitants; they occupied it now and were still to occupy it in time to come; the inevitable successors of the titular possessor were seen around him on each step, his equals, peers and neighbors, one or the other often designated by name as his legal heir, the purchaser of his survivorship.
In those days, not only was the individual himself considered, his merits and his services, but likewise his family and ancestry, his state and condition, the society he entered into, the "salon" he maintained, his fortune and his followers; these antecedents and surroundings composed the quality of the personage; without this requisite quality, he could not go beyond the landing-place.

Strictly speaking, a personage born on the upper steps of one story might sometimes succeed in mounting the lowest steps of the next story, but there he stopped.

In short, it was always considered by those on the lower story that the upper story was inaccessible and, moreover, uninhabitable.
Accordingly, most of the public offices, in the finances, in the administration, in the judiciary, in the parliaments, in the army, at court, were private property as is now the case with the places of advocates, notaries and brokers; they had to be bought to enable one to follow these pursuits, and were very dear; one had to possess a large capital and be content beforehand to derive only a mediocre revenue from it, 10, 5 and sometimes 3 % on the purchase-money.[3311] The place once acquired, especially if an important one, involved official parade, receptions, an open table, a large annual outlay;[3312] it often ran the purchaser in debt; he knew that his acquisition would bring him more consideration than crowns.

On the other hand, to obtain possession of it, he had to secure the good-will of the body of which he became a member, or of the patron who bestowed the office.