Estates General (France) - 1789

1789

At the time of the revolution, the First Estate comprised 10,000 Catholic clergy and owned 5%-10% of the lands in France—the highest per capita of any other estate. All property of the First Estate was tax exempt. The Second Estate comprised the nobility, which consisted of 400,000 persons at the time, including women and children. Since the death of Louis XIV in 1715, the nobles had enjoyed a resurgence in power. They had almost a monopoly over distinguished government service, higher church offices, army parliaments, and most other public and semipublic honors by the time of the revolution. Like the First Estate, they were not taxed by the principle of feudal precedent. The Third Estate comprised about 25 million people: the bourgeoisie, the peasants, and everyone else in France. Unlike the First and Second Estates, the Third Estate were compelled to pay taxes, but the bourgeoisie found one way or another to be exempt from them. The heavy burden of the French government therefore fell upon the poorest in French society—the peasantry, the working poor, and the farmers. There was much resentment from the Third Estate towards its superiors.

In 1789, the Estates-General was summoned for the first time since 1614. As Fénelon had wished in former days, an Assembly of Notables in 1787 (which already displayed great independence) preceded the Estates-General session. According to the model of 1614, the Estates-General would consist of equal numbers of representatives of each Estate. The Third Estate demanded, and ultimately received, double representation, which they already had in the provincial assemblies. When the Estates-General convened in Versailles on 5 May 1789, however, it became clear that the double representation was something of a sham: voting was to occur "by orders", which meant that the collective vote of the 578 representatives of the Third Estate would be weighed the same as that of each of the other Estates.

Royal efforts to focus solely on taxes failed totally. The Estates-General reached an immediate impasse, debating (with each of the three estates meeting separately) its own structure rather than the nation's finances. On 28 May 1789, the Abbé Sieyès moved that the Third Estate, now meeting as the Communes (English: Commons), proceed with verification of its own powers and invite the other two estates to take part, but not to wait for them. They proceeded to do so, completing the process on June 17. Then they voted a measure far more radical, declaring themselves the National Assembly, an assembly not of the Estates but of "the People". They invited the other orders to join them, but made it clear that they intended to conduct the nation's affairs with or without them.

King Louis XVI tried to resist. When he shut down the Salle des États where the Assembly met, the Assembly moved their deliberations to a nearby tennis court, where they proceeded to swear the Tennis Court Oath (20 June 1789), under which they agreed not to separate until they had given France a constitution. A majority of the representatives of the clergy soon joined them, as did forty-seven members of the nobility. By 27 June the royal party had overtly given in, although the military began to arrive in large numbers around Paris and Versailles. Messages of support for the Assembly poured in from Paris and other French cities. On 9 July the Assembly reconstituted itself as the National Constituent Assembly.