Various generations of historians have tended to view the Constitution of 1791 unfavorably, albeit for different reasons. Mathiez, for example, asserted that privilege of wealth replaced that of birth, and Soboul echoed this judgment when he wrote of the French throwing off the yoke of privilege based on birth but replacing it with privilege based on money. Similar judgments have continued to the present era. Such criticisms, however, concentrate on only one aspect of the constitution and are overstated in any case.

Indeed, the degree of political involvement – in political clubs, popular societies or elections, especially the elections of 1790 – belies any notion of a plutocracy. Contemporaries clearly regarded the constitution with respect and were strongly attached to it. To most, it represented the replacement of a corporative, hierarchical society of orders and privilege by one based entirely on new principles of equity, equality and the rule of law. It is not surprising, then, that most Frenchmen viewed the work of the National Assembly so favorably. The Jacobin club of Loches, for example, wrote the following to the National Assembly in late September, 1791, after Louis's acceptance of the constitution: