French aristocracy
Pre-revolutionary ruling class
The French aristocracy was the noble class of France, a hereditary elite holding titles, land, and privileges until the Revolution of 1789 dismantled their legal status.
The term now refers to descendants of these families or, more loosely, to any privileged French upper class: The French aristocracy still maintains certain social circles in Paris.
It evokes images of Versailles, ancien régime excess, and eventual guillotines.
- Ancien RégimePre-1789 French system
- DukeHigh-ranking noble title
- Estates-GeneralFrench representative body, three classes
- GuillotineFalling blade execution device
- HeraldryStudy of coats of arms
Marquis · Count · Versailles · royal court · Feudalism · Enlightenment · Baron · Nobility · noblesse oblige · landed gentry · social hierarchy · Napoleonic era · Huguenots · Marie Antoinette · Hundred Years' War · Louis XIV · Sun King · Viscount
- DumasThe Three Musketeers, Athos, Porthos, Aramis, swashbuckling
- Franco-Russian LettersPushkin, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Turgenev, Chekhov
French aristocracythe people
Citizens collectively
sans-culottes · the masses · serfs · villeins
French aristocracyAmerican democracy
U.S. system of elected governance
English aristocracy · Russian aristocracy · British nobility
French, France, Francophone, aristocracy, aristocrat, aristocratic, aristocrats, aristocratically