The ideas behind the French Revolution came, for a good part, from the Enlightenments. Enlightened individuals throughout Europe were few and belonged to a social background that allowed them to be educated, that is the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie. Until the radicalisation of the peasantry in the late summer 1789 the dynamics of the Revolution were for a large part due to aristocrats and bourgeois. And the intellectual environment surrounding the ideas of the Revolution was also, except a few exceptions maybe, lead by an intellectual elite.

At the beginning of the Revolution, there was a lot of enthusiasm about the possibility of many changes to be brought to the old crippled regime. Many bourgeois and many aristocrats believed it was the moment to create a British-like system with a deciding Parliament. This fascination for the political system of Great-Britain often described by writers during the 18th was a determining factor in the attraction over aristocrats that the troubles in Paris and Versailles had at the beginning. The establishment of a constitutional monarchy seemed to concur with this attraction for a new political system, deemed new. Mirabeau, representative of the Third Estate but marquis nonetheless was one of them. Some nobles even voted in favour of the regicide. The most famous being Louis-Philippe the duc of Orléans (later known as Philippe Egalité), a prince of the blood.

One thing to keep in mind is that the aristocracy was never a single body in the society. It was very much divided and always was. As such, political opinions within the aristocracy were very diverse. If many enjoyed the wings of liberty that seemed to come out of revolutionary ideas, it changed as the Revolution radicalised especially after the end of the constitutional period. None other than the viscount of Chateaubriand illustrate this shift. An early sympathizer of the idea of freedom, he then became disgusted by murderous phase of the Revolution, especially after the Great Scare of an aristocratic plot to erase the ideals of the Revolution. In his Memoirs from Beyond the Grave Chateaubriand wrote (my own translation from the original in French):

The Revolution would have enticed me if it had not begun with crimes: I saw the first head on a spike, I walked away. Never in my eyes will murder be an object of admiration and an argument for freedom.

Other nobles showed their willingness to live in a revolutionary France as long as the king remained king but walked away when the monarchy was abolished. This is the case of the marquis François-Claude de Bouillé, a staunch royalist and always faithful to Louis XVI. He was a provincial governor until 1790 and plotted the Varennes escape and later fled. This is also the case of Louis de Bonald who would later become an early sociologist and one of the leader of the Ultra-Royalist movement during the Restauration. Elected mayor of his town and later deputy, he broke off with the Revolution because of the anti-Catholic measures such as the civil constitution of the clergy and the confiscation of church properties.

Other nobles were much more radicals in their views, those were often members of the Jacobin Club or close to them. The two brothers Ferdinand Félix and Louis-Michel Lepeletier de Saint-Fargeau are exemples. Louis-Michel voted in favour of abolishing noble titles and restricting family names to a single particule. As such he signed his letters Louis-Michel Lepeletier until he was murdered by a guard of the king, becoming a national figure and hero of the people.

So the aristocracy's stance on the Revolution varied along with the character of all the individuals. But aristocrats did indeed support the Revolution, some from start to finish (if there ever was an end to the Revolution). You do know some nobles who are emblematic of the period such as La Fayette or even Napoléon Bonaparte. Other famous nobles are Paul (de) Barras and Alexandre de Beauharnais, Talleyrand, the mathematician marquis de Condorçet, the duke d'Aiguillon. The count of Clermont-Tonnerre and the viscount Louis-Marc de Noailles both proposed the abolition of privileges due to the nobility.