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As voting expanded to those who didn't own land, and then to the formerly enslaved and to women, the contours of our third estate shifted, but always so as to preserve identification with privilege.

The term "middle class", at the time of the revolution meaning untitled yet well-bred or wealthy, came to denote this protean posture within Usian society. The phrase would become a flattering empty signification, "class" as self-determined audience surrogate, an everyman of self-worthy achievement.