forgetting as they also do that
when these terms really did mean something correct, ninety-nine out of
a hundred nobles were indisputably commoners, boors, and villeins, while
the others, necessarily, were brigands. Try as the privileged orders may
want to close their eyes to the revolution produced by the force of
circumstance and the passage of time, it is no less real. Once upon a
time, the Third Estate consisted of serfs and the noble order was everything.
Today, the Third Estate is everything and nobility is simply a
word. But behind the word, and purely because of the influence of a false
opinion, a new and intolerable aristocracy has insinuated itself illegally
into its present position and the people have every reason not to want any
aristocrats