It seems to me lately that the crack-up we’ve entered is liable to play out more gruesomely for our privileged elites than the orgy of bloodletting that attended the French Revolution. That historical moment was a sharp transition between old, settled social relations and the new political realities of imminent industrialization and a rising middle class. The elites in charge of things to that moment, an ossified aristocracy, responded to rising discontent with utter feckless stupidity. To make matters worse, a great many of them were hunkered down in the fantasy-land Royal Palace of Versailles, enjoying what was for practical purposes a non-stop mega house party. They must have thought they were safe twelve miles outside Paris.