I think the real lesson of the french revolution is that the petty nobility will run things right into the ground for a quick buck if you let them.

I don't think it was that the lower class was disenfranchised, it was that disenfranchising them made the petty nobility comparatively over-enfranchised.

This isn't exactly a hot take. All those memes about good times and weak men resonate for a reason. The British hereditary nobility did better, a little, but also were very much not great.

And of course there's a pretty obvious parallel between these groups of people the the professional managerial class in modern western societies that lack a rigid social class.