Despite his pride in being French, Gobineau often attacked many aspects of French life under the Third Republic as reflecting "democratic degeneration"—namely the chaos that he believed resulted when the mindless masses were allowed political power—which meant that critical reception of Gobineau in France was very mixed.[75] His contempt for ordinary people emerges from his letters, where his preferred term for common folk was la boue ("the mud").[76] Gobineau questioned the belief that the black and yellow races belong to the same human family as the white race and share a common ancestor.