The First Consul would do himself a wrong were he to curb his right to choose: he needs every available capacity, and he takes them where he finds them, to the right, to the left, above or below, in order to keep his regiments full and enroll in his service every legitimate ambition and every justifiable pretension.
Under the monarchy, an obscure birth debarred even the best endowed men from the principal offices.

Under the Consulate and the Empire the two leading personages of the State are Lebrun, Maupeou's old secretary, a productive translator,[3308] a lawyer, formerly councilor in a provincial court of justice, then third-consul, then Duc de Plaisance and arch-chancellor of the Empire and Cambaceres, second-consul, then Duc de Parme and arch-chancellor of the Empire, both of them being princes.

Similarly, the marshals are new men and soldiers of fortune, a few of them born in the class of inferior nobles or in the ordinary bourgeois class, mostly among the people or even amongst the populace, and, in its lowest ranks, Massena, the son of a wine-dealer, once a cabin-boy and then common soldier and non-commissioned officer for fourteen years; Ney, son of a cooper, Lefebvre, son of a miller, Murat, son of a tavern-keeper, Lannes, son of an hostler, and Augereau, son of a mason and a female dealer in fruit and vegetables .-- Under the Republic, noble birth consigned, or confined, the ablest and best qualified men for their posts to a voluntary obscurity, only too glad when their names did not condemn them to exile, imprisonment or to the guillotine.

Under the Empire, M.de Talleyrand is prince of Benevento, minister of foreign affairs and vice-grand-elector with a salary of five hundred thousand francs.

We see personages of old nobility figuring in the first ranks: among the clergy M.de Roquelaure, M.de Boisgelin, M.de Broglie, M.Ferdinand de Rohan; in the magistracy, M.Seguier, M.
Pasquier, M.Mole; on the domestic and decorative staff of the palace, Comte de Segur, grand-master of ceremonies, Comte de Montesquiou-Fezensac, grand-chamberlain, also as chamberlains, Comtes d'Aubusson de la Feuillade, de Brigode, de Croy, de Coutades, de Louvois, de Brancas, de Gontaut, de Grammont, de Beauvau, de Lur-Saluces, d'Haussonville, de Noailles, de Chabot, de Turenne,[3309] and other bearers of historic names .-- During the Revolution, at each new parliamentarian, popular or military coup d'etat the notabilities of the vanquished party were always excluded from office and generally outlawed.