ough
its interference, all are comprised within its enclosure and shut up
and kept there; no other field is open to run on; on the contrary, every
career within these bounds, indicated and staked out beforehand, offers
an opportunity for all runners: the government has laid out and
leveled the ground, established compartments, divided off and prepared
rectilinear lists which converge to the goal; there, it presides, the
unique arbiter of the race, exposing to all competitors the innumerable
prizes which it proposes for them.--These prizes consist of offices, the
various employments of the State, political, military, ecclesiastical,
judiciary, administrative and university, all the honors and dignities
which it dispenses, all the grades of its hierarchy from the lowest
to the highest, from that of corporal, college-regent, alderman,
office--supernumerary, assistant priest up to that of senator, marshal
of France, grand master of the university, cardinal, and minister of
State. It confers on its possessor, according to the greater or lesser
importance of the place, a greater or lesser portion of the advantages
which all men crave and seek for money, power, patronage, influence,
consideration, importance and social pre-eminence; thus, according to
the rank one attains in the hierarchy, one is something, or of some
account; outside of the hierarchy, one is nothing.

Consequently, the faculty for getting in and advancing one's self
in these lists is the most precious of all: in the new Regime it is
guaranteed by the law as a common right and is open to all Frenchmen. As
no other outlet for them is allowed by the State it owes them this
one; since it invites them and reduces everybody to competing under its
direction it is bound to be an impartial arbiter; since the quality of
citizen, in itself and through it alone, confers the right to make one's
way, all citizens indifferently must enjoy the right of succeeding in
any employment, the very highest, and without any distinction as
to birth, fortune, cult or party. There must be no more preliminary
exclusions; no more gratuitous preferences, undeserved favors,
anticipated promotions; no more special favors.--Such is the rule of
the modern State: constituted as it is, that is to say, monopolizer and
omnipresent, it cannot violate this rule for any length of time with
impunity. In France, at least, the good and bad spirits of equality
agree in exacting adherence to it: on this p