In seventeenth-century France, many remunerative government positions in the provinces were sold by the king and then passed from father to son. Historians have concluded that this system was more effective than a purely meritocratic system in ensuring not only that most of the officials were competent, but that they were more sympathetic to the local people than to the king.
Government officials often received financial gratuities from local merchants does not help to support the historians' conclusion if it is true of seventeenth-century France.