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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Psychology of Revolution by Gustave le Bon: countries which the repeated efforts of the kings, including
Louis XIV., had not succeeded in wholly unifying. The most
useful effect of the Revolution was this very unification.
To such material divisions were added social divisions
constituted by different classes--nobles, clergy, and the Third
Estate, whose rigid barriers could only with the utmost
difficulty be crossed.
Regarding the division of the classes as one of its sources of
power, the ancien regime had rigorously maintained that
division. This became the principal cause of the hatreds which
the system inspired. Much of the violence of the triumphant
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