The magnitude of the changes initiated by the French Revolution should not be overstated

The magnitude of the changes initiated by the French Revolution should not be overstated, however. Beyond the probable decrease of inequality of wealth between 1780 and 1810, followed by a gradual increase between 1810 and 1910, and especially after 1870 , the most significant fact is that inequality of capital ownership remained relatively stable at an extremely high level throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. During this period [in France] the top decile consistently owned 80 to 90 percent of the total wealth.

T. Piketty, Capital in the 21st Century (2013), 342