'Revolution' is strictly defined as 'a forcible overthrow of government or social order, in favor of a new system or set of conditions.'¹ This meaning of revolution is not the same for everyone, however. Nor are the interpretations or effects of a revolution the same for everyone.

The French revolution had many different meanings for different people, and one such group was the French nobility. But whilst the revolution treated all nobles in generally the same way, this is not to say that all French nobility saw the revolution in the same light.² Differences in the degree of wealth, status and power obviously existed from noble to noble, but many privileges still remained.³ Prior to the revolution of 1789-1799 the nobility occupied a position of high stature and authority, generally based on landed wealth. The nobles distributed portions of their estates to the landless peasants in exchange for their services or the payment of taxes [often in the form of a large payment of their produce]. Cowie points out, however, that- "As decades passed, many lords demanded a cash payment instead of, or as well as, the payments in produce."⁴ The nobility also enjoyed considerable legal privileges,⁵ and could impose restrictive tariffs and tolls on trade that generally operated to the detriment of France's internal economy.⁶ Thus with so many powerful privileges open to the nobility, it is no surprise that " … the nobility exasperated not only the middle class but also the peasantry."⁷

Therefore it may appear as no surprise that the Third Estate was pushed into revolution in 1789 because of the domineering nature of the nobility. However such an observation may be too simplistic, and for a number of reasons. Attempts by Louis XIV's ministers [Calonne and Necker], to reform the existing system [1787-8], and to provide a source of revenue to aid the acute financial problems of the empire resulted in placing a heavy tax burden upon the nobility,⁸ and in leaving the nobility with "little effective power."⁹ As a result many nobles became highly dissatisfied with the existing system, and hoped for a restoration of their privileges [thus the summoning of the Estate's General]. Alison Patrick expands on this point and asserts that the revolution had different meanings for different nobles. To the growing number of dissatisfied nobles a revolution may have meant a revival of the old order and a restoration of privileges. Others may have supported the existing monarchy, and others still, as Patrick points out, may have been "liberal nobles".¹⁰

Such nobles were "forward-looking", and "more in touch with the majority of their own electorate",¹¹ and for such individuals the revolution would have meant a positive change for the better, via a possible removal of the monarchy and the unfair manorial system. Evidence that these ?liberal nobles? existed is seen in noble affiliation with the Jacobins and the almost entirely noble Society of Thirty.¹² T.C.W Blanning supports this, and even goes so far as to state that "if anything, the nobles were more liberal than their bourgeois colleagues [in the Estate's General]".¹³

Despite such different views on what the revolution meant, though, the revolution affected the nobles indiscriminately, and the materialistic and authoritarian views of some members of the nobility proved to overshadow the views of the moderates.¹⁴ Doyle tells us that the revolution was highly anti-aristocratic, it abolished privileges, titles, and even the nobility itself.¹⁵ At least 12,500 noble families suffered some loss of lands, and with the abolition of fiscal and other privileges many lost a significant portion of their income. Borrowing to repurchase confiscated lands imposed additional strains on income¹⁶ -" … successive waves of new leaders moved to persecute nobles …  the individual and property rights of nobles …  were denied to them in 1793-94 and especially in 1797-98, when they were deprived of French citizenship".¹⁷

Another shift in the meaning of ?revolution? to the French nobility had occurred. Originally referring to their individual desires and beliefs on stasis and change, their experience from 1798-1799 meant that 'revolution' came to represent fear, a loss of authority and stature, and a considerable loss especially of wealth. Despite this widespread attack on the nobility, it was not strong enough to completely wipe them out. Just because the state ceased to recognize the nobility did not mean that the nobles disappeared.

16,431 nobles emigrated during this period from France,¹⁸ but this was out of a total of 110,000 to 120,000 nobles in total.¹⁹ Land was indeed lost by many, but of those that did lose land, they were often able to secretly buy it back when it returned to the market, or they could buy confiscated church land, significantly reduced in price due to massive inflation. "Perhaps not more than a fifth of noble land passed finally into other hands."²⁰ Only 1,158 nobles were killed during the Terror [a relatively small number]²¹, and nobles sympathetic to the revolution remained active in the period.²² The revolution "heralded the decline of the nobility and began the process", but "it came nowhere near to completing it. The Empire and the Restoration were to bring the nobility an Indian summer."²³ The French nobility still held claim well into the nineteenth century of being able to call itself a "ruling class".²⁴

As an end result, then, we can see that 'revolution' can have no clear or constant definition. Our interpretation of what a revolution constitutes, stands for or means, can differ widely, and can be based upon very personal opinions. For the nobility, their changing attitudes toward the meaning of ?revolution? reflected firstly division amongst their own social class, next the wisdom of experience, and finally a post-revolutionary view that the revolution was merely an initial dent in the armor of the French nobility.

ENDNOTES

1. The Oxford Dictionary of Current English, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1985, p.641.
2. Alison Patrick, "The Second Estate in the Constituent Assembly, 1789-1791", Journal of Modern History, Vol.62, No.2, June 1990, pp.223-226.
3. "...rights of local justice and village surveillance; rights of monopoly, such as the exclusive right to hunt and to maintain a mill, an oven or a wine-press...", George Rude, Revolutionary Europe 1783-1815, HarperCollins Publishers Ltd, Glasgow, 1964, p.16.
4. H.R. Cowie, Revolutions In The Modern World, Nelson Publications, Melbourne, 1982, p.19.
5. Rude, op. cit., pp.15-16.
6. Ibid., p.10.
7. E.J. Hobsbawm, The Age of Revolution 1789-1848, Mentor Books, New York, 1964, p.79.
8. 'The French nobility... was probably subject to a higher tax burden than most of its continental counterparts.", in William Doyle, The Old European Order 1660-1800, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1978, p.74.
9. Cowie, op. cit., p.21.
10. Patrick, op. cit., p.243.
11. Ibid., 224.
12. Ibid., 243.
13. T.C.W. Blanning, The French Revolution-Aristocrats versus Bourgeois?, Macmillan Education Ltd, London, 1987, p.35.
14. "The Third Estate too had its royalists, but that was not the point; the trouble was that the Second Estate needed republicans to even the score, and these were not very noticeable.", in Patrick, op. cit., p.248.
15. Doyle, op. cit., p.370.
16. Ibid., pp.371-372.
17. David Higgs, Nobles in Nineteenth-Century France- the practice of inegalitarianism, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1987, p.xi.
18. The Raigecourts family can be seen as an example here of a French noble family forced to flee France during the revolution, in Higgs, op. cit., p.82.
19. Doyle, op. cit., p.371.
20. Ibid., p.371.
21. Ibid., 371.
22. Blanning, op. cit., p.44.
23. Doyle, op. cit., p.372.
24. N. Hampson, "What difference did the French Revolution Make?", History, Vol.74, 1989, p.237.