The 1993 French legislative elections were the only ones in which candidates were permitted to receive contributions from legal entities; the relevant financial accounts were published in the Journal officiel [rough equivalent of the US Congressional Record]. Those elections constitute an exemplary case for studying the question of relations between money and politics. This article is based on an analysis of the structure and volume of contributions received by 4 880 of the 5 254 candidates for a seat in the French parliament. The analysis brings to light the relevance of the three major candidate profiles that emerged in the second half of the nineteenth century, and allows for qualifying a body of journalistic and academic commentaries that stressed the impact of money on the outcome of those elections.