“Eat the Rich!” was a common battle-cry during the French Revolution. The “evil rich” were blamed on every failure in every system within France. As the focus shifted from killing the King, Queen, and others close to the throne to installing an utterly egalitarian society with no social ranks whatsoever, the “evil rich” came under increasing fire.
Soon, anyone alleged to be numbered among the “evil rich” could be jailed and executed simply because hr or she had been anonymously reported for having done something “counter-revolutionary”. Shedding tears for a guillotined family member was a cause of imprisonment and death.
As time went on, “Domiciliary Visits” kept anyone with any money under close observation. Such visits allowed frequent inspections of people and property. And, they helped to provide the hundred and fifty people a day who had to be guillotined in Paris, alone.
The Revolution, which ostensibly began with a desire to establish a Constitutional Monarchy, quickly devolved into a leftist snake pit, where any who could be identified as being on the Right or in the Middle had to be exterminated for being “counter-revolutionary”. Such proscriptions descended upon whole cities and vast departments, where the massacres of those who were not sufficiently obedient took place in the bloodiest ways possible.