The liberals of the Restoration distinguished between democracy as a form of society, the fall of social estates and privileges, and democracy as a form of government (Krause 2017, 109–124). Thus, François Guizot, one of their leading figures, characterized the social change in Europe and America as a centuries-long process towards democracy, i.e., towards an egalitarian form of society in which there are no castes, classes, privileges, special and exclusive rights or fixed land ownership in the hands of individual families.