To be fair, there were liberal nobles who wanted to ditch their titles and make the system more meritocratic (with the subtle acknowledgement that nobles could

To be fair, there were liberal nobles who wanted to ditch their titles and make the system more meritocratic (with the subtle acknowledgement that nobles could afford education). America’s favorite Frenchman, the marquis de Lafayette, was one of them. They just weren’t very effective at defusing the time bomb.