It’s something I’ve been curious about, as I know that many of the French aristocracy survived the Revolution by emigrating to other countries, and I couldn’t help but wonder if there were any who remained in France and avoided the guillotine.
Short answer, yes. Thousands, potentially tens of thousands, of members of the French aristocracy survived the Terror in 1793/4. However, the precise number is impossible to determine for the reasons outlined below.
Firstly, the exact number of the aristocracy prior to 1789 is not known. Abbe Sieyes proposed the figure of 110,000 (which would be 0.4% of a population of 26,000,000), but Historian Georges Lefebvre is keen to point out that Sieyes was undercounting (Lefebvre asserts that Sieyes probably only included the heads of families). Historian Christopher Hibbert asserts their number to be roughly 400,000, which is on the higher side of most estimates. In short, the exact figure of the nobility is unknown, with estimates generally ranging from 1 - 1.5 % of the total population.
Secondly, the exact number of 'emigres' is unknown, and the term is not used exclusively to describe members of the second estate (the aristocracy) who fled France. In fact, the term is used to refer to all refugees/emigrants from France, including common clergy and members of the Third Estate (ranging from the middle class to the peasantry). Historian Donald Greer estimates that 150,000 emigres departed France during the revolutionary period. Even if all these emigres were members of the nobility, there would likely be a significant number of nobles who remained in France during the Terror (given the estimates of the size of the nobility pre-1789). However, according to Historian Greer's detailed analysis of emigres in Great Britain, only 16% of these emigres were of noble origin. Excluding those departments which saw the most emigration from members of the Third Estate, that proportion jumps to 25%. While these proportions relate to the emigre population in Great Britain, clearly a significant proportion of the total 150,000 emigres were not nobles. As a result, a significant proportion of the aristocracy remained in France during the Terror. Even accounting for the death toll of the Terror (both the official toll as well as casualties of war and extrajudicial deaths), the result must be that thousands, likely tens of thousands, of aristocrats survived while living in revolutionary France.
Sources:
Lefebvre, Georges. The French Revolution: Volume 34 (Routledge Classics) . Taylor and Francis.
Hibbert, Christopher. The French Revolution (Kindle Locations 378-379). Penguin Books Ltd.
Reboul, Juliette. French Emigration to Great Britain in Response to the French Revolution. Palgrave Macmillan.
Greer, Donald. The Incidence of Emigration during the French Revolution. Harvard University Press.