Consequences

On the evening of August 4, 1789 the newly assembled National Assembly of France voted to abolish the "privileges" of nobility.  Formed in the turmoil of the early days of the French Revolution, the Assembly represented all of the estates (Nobility/Religious/Bourgeois) of the country.  The proposal was introduced by the Vicomte de Noailles, a member of the nobility.  Noailles had served under the Marquis de Lafayette during the American Revolution and negotiated the formalities for the surrender of Lord Cornwallis' army at Yorktown.

Count Mirabeau, one of the early leaders of the Revolution and an advocate for establishment of a constitutional monarchy along the lines of Britain, denounced the elimination of privileges as the victory of the "theorists" who had nothing practical to offer the people.

Within a few years most of the nobility who agreed that night to give up their privileges were executed, imprisoned, or in exile.  Noailles escaped to America, returning to France after Napoleon took power in 1799.  Other members of his family were not so fortunate.  His wife was guillotined in 1794 along with her mother and paternal grandmother.  Her sister was spared at the last minute due to the intervention of U.S. Minister to France James Monroe, but only after she witnessed the beheadings of her family.

The privileges given up by the nobility in 1789 were real, though the delusions of the theorists eventually led to an orgy of mass murder and chaos resulting in the eventual seizure of power by Napoleon.  In today's world even the "privileges" being so easily tossed about as an epithet only exist in the minds of the "theorists" who increasingly control our institutions.