Note 133 — Front matter (continued 3)
Reading edition
"Before the Revolution the number of noble families in France did not exceed 17,500. Reckoning five individuals to a family there might have been about 90,000 nobles. The disasters of the Revolution must have reduced them to less than 40,000."--L'Europe après le Congrès d'Aix la Chapelle, by Abbé de Pradt, note at the end of chap. ix.