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A study on social relegation in the nineteenth century was carried out thanks to the analysis of more than 5,000 letters requesting help written by members of the elite of the Ancien Régime. It appears that the provincial nobility of the west of France (Normandy, Brittany, and Aquitaine) were particularly impoverished. Eighty-seven petitioners from the Norman nobility were identified and researched so as to understand their social trajectory. The reasons behind this social relegation are linked to political circumstances, in particular those related to the Revolution, but are also largely due to personal hardships, which bear witness to real social facts. Traits of the Ancien Régime were perpetuated: women and members of the younger branches of lineages were more prone to social decline. Norman petitioners wrote from Paris, where they lived in poverty, even though they were supported by “social investigators.”