Excerpts from Books and Wikipedia
The declaration was drafted by Marquis de Lafayette, Thomas Jefferson, and others. Feudalism and royal absolutism were repudiated. The writers believed that universal rights applied to every country. "By doing so, the revolutionaries instantly aroused the hostility of all existing monarchies in Europe, which feared the spread of such radical notions within their own borders." [Furtado: 1001 Days] "More specifically, the demands of the bourgeois of 1789 are laid down in the famous Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizens of that year. This document is a manifesto against the hierarchical society of noble privilege, but not one in favour of democratic or egalitarian society. 'Men are born and live free and equal under the laws,' said its first article;" [Hobsbawm: Revolution, p. 59]