In the 1820s the Turin chamber of commerce summed up the change by noting that the French Revolution had caused ‘a total confusion among the different classes’ in society: ‘Everyone dresses in the same manner, the noble cannot be distinguished from the plebeian, the merchant from the magistrate, the proprietor from the craftsman, the master from the servant; at least in appearances, the woeful principle that created the revolutions is regrettably maintained.’ The genie was out of the bottle, and it was impossible to put it back.
