Estates General
History >> French RevolutionThe Estates General was the legislative body of France up until the French Revolution. The king would call a meeting of the Estates General when he wanted the advice on certain issues. The Estates General didn't meet regularly and had no real power.
Meeting of the Estates General in 1789 by Isidore-Stanislaus Helman (1743-1806)
and Charles Monnet (1732-1808)
What were the French Estates?The Estates General was made up of different groups of people called "Estates." The "Estates" were important social divisions in the culture of ancient France. What estate you belonged to had a major impact on your social status and quality of life.
- First Estate - The First Estate was made up of the clergy. These were people who worked for the church including priests, monks, bishops, and nuns. This was the smallest estate in terms of population.
- Second Estate - The Second Estate was the French nobility. These people held most of the high offices in the land, got special privileges, and didn't have to pay most of the taxes.
- Third Estate - The rest of the population (around 98% of the people) were members of the Third Estate. These people were the peasants, craftspeople, and laborers of the land. They paid taxes including the gabelle (a tax on salt) and the corvee (they had to work a certain number of days for free for the local lord or the king each year).
How did they vote?
One of the first issues that came up at the Estates General was how they would vote. The king said that each estate would vote as a body (each estate would get 1 vote). The members of the Third Estate did not like this. It meant that they could always be outvoted by the much smaller First and Second Estates. They wanted the vote to be based on the number of members.The Third Estate Declares the National Assembly
After arguing over how they would vote for several days, the Third Estate began to take matters into their own hands. They met on their own and invited members of the other estates to join them. On June 13, 1789, the Third Estate declared itself the "National Assembly." They would begin making their own laws and running the country.
The Tennis Court Oath
by Jacques-Louis David Tennis Court Oath King Louis XVI did not condone the formation or the actions of the National Assembly. He ordered the building where the National Assembly was meeting (the Salle des Etats) closed. The National Assembly was not to be denied, however. They met on a local tennis court (called the Jeu de Paume). While at the tennis court the members took an oath to keep meeting until the king recognized them as a legitimate government body.
Interesting Facts about the Estates General
- The king also took advice from the "Assembly of Notables." This was a group of high ranking nobles.
- In 1789 France, there were around 100,000 members of the First Estate, 400,000 members of the Second Estate, and around 27 million members of the Third Estate.
- Some members of the First Estate (the clergy) were commoners before they became clergy. Many of them sided with the issues and concerns of the Third Estate.
- It was very rare for a person to move up in status from the Third Estate (commoner) to the Second Estate (noble).
- The representatives of each estate at the Estates General assembly were elected by the people from their estate.
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History >> French Revolution
The political and financial situation in France had grown rather bleak, forcing Louis XVI to summon the Estates General. This assembly was composed of three estates – the clergy, nobility and commoners – who had the power to decide on the levying of new taxes and to undertake reforms in the country. The opening of the Estates General, on 5 May 1789 in Versailles, also marked the start of the French Revolution.
On 4 May 1789 the last grand ceremony of the Ancien Régime was held in Versailles: the procession of the Estates General. From all over France, 1,200 deputies had arrived for the event. The deputies of the Third Estate (the Commoners) were the greatest in number, dressed in black with a gold and black overcoat. They were all holding a candle in their hand, except for those carrying the banners and the King’s Falconers. The king himself was wearing an overcoat of golden fabric and was surrounded by the most important Officers to the Crown. On his hat he wore the Regent Diamond, which was the largest diamond in the kingdom. The queen was wearing a gold and silver dress. The king was cheered, but not the queen. The procession started at Notre-Dame, crossed the Place d’Armes, and finished at the church of Saint-Louis, where Monseigneur de La Fare, bishop of Nancy, stood at the pulpit and gave his famous speech in which he severely rebuked the luxury of the Court. For the first time in history a bishop was applauded in a church.
Louis XVI opened the session with a speech in which he reviewed the circumstances that had led to the convocation, and what he expected from the Estates General. As a peaceful king, he declared himself “the people’s greatest friend”.
The solemn opening ceremony began on 5 May. The convocation had been sent out on 5 July the previous year, assembling the Estates General for the first time since 1614. A temporary hall with columns had been built behind the Menus-Plaisirs building on Avenue de Paris. However, contrary to the depiction in the famous engraving, the hall was very small. The king officiated from his position at the end of the hall beneath a majestic baldachin, with the queen and the princes of the blood around him. The deputies were seated in rows around the edge. The members of the Third Estate and a few of the Clergy and the Nobility would later constitute the first National Assembly.
Louis XVI opened the session with a speech in which he reviewed the circumstances that had led to the convocation, and what he expected from the Estates General. As a peaceful king, he declared himself “the people’s greatest friend”. This was followed by speeches by Barentin, the Keeper of the Seals, and Necker, the Minister of Finances, concerning the economic situation in the kingdom. The budget deficit was 56 million. Necker claimed that new taxes would be enough to make up for the deficit, but the Commoners, who were only too aware of the country’s expectations, were dissatisfied with such a mediocre discourse, and decided to take things into their own hands. The Revolution had begun…
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The Estates-General (in French, États Généraux) was a representative assembly of the Ancien Régime, the closest it had to a congress or parliament. It was comprised of representatives from all Three Estates. The Estates-General would play a pivotal role in the revolutionary events of 1789.
An advisory body
Unlike modern assemblies, the Estates-General did not meet regularly. Instead, it was summoned occasionally by the king, usually in times of war or crisis. The Estates-General had no sovereign or legislative power; its role was simply to advise or support the king.
The first Estates-General was gathered by King Philip IV in 1302 during a conflict with the Pope. During the 15th and 16th centuries, the Estates-General was convened sporadically, usually to obtain political, financial or military support from the Three Estates.
The last Estates-General before the French Revolution was held in 1614. It was not convened during the 72-year reign of Louis XIV, who considered it unnecessary in an age of absolute monarchical power. It was also not summoned by his successor, Louis XV. When Louis XVI convocated [called together] the assembly in 1789, many considered this a sign of weakening monarchical power.
The long hiatus
Between 1614 and the late 1780s, the kings of France tried to forget about the Estates-General. To summon the assembly would be a sign their absolutist monarchy was no longer absolute.
Other powerful Frenchmen, particularly the nation’s aristocrats and liberal reformers, did not forget. During this 175-year period, there were several attempts to reform the national body. As flawed and powerless as it was, the assembly was France’s only national representative body – and the only place where the nobility could gather and directly challenge monarchical power.
Demands to convoke an Estates-General intensified in 1715, following the death of Louis XIV. His successor Louis XV came under considerable pressure from the parlements, who refused to register new taxes unless the king called the Estates-General. Louis XV, who once declared he would “rather abdicate than call an Estates-General”, responded by abolishing the parlements and appointing a new panel to register his taxes.
Louis XVI and the Parlements
A similar protest with the parlements forced Louis XVI to convoke [order the formation] of the Estates-General in 1789.
In 1787, the king’s finance minister, Etienne Brienne, attempted to push through fiscal reforms that included a new land tax. Brienne’s proposal was blocked by the Paris parlement, which asserted that new taxes could only be approved by the Three Estates combined. This triggered an eight-month cold war between the royal government and the parlements.
In November 1787, the king sought to win over the Paris parlement by promising to convoke an Estates-General for 1792. The deadlock continued until May 1788, when Louis XVI followed his grandfather’s tactic, suspending the parlements in favour of newly appointed courts. This decision only created public outrage and a degree of violence, including the notorious ‘Day of Tiles’ when soldiers in Grenoble were pelted with roofing shingles.
The Estates-General convoked
On August 8th 1788, the king relented and brought forward the Estates-General by three years. His decree convoking the Estates-General claimed to look forward to “calm and peaceful days after the storm”.
The question then turned to how the Estates-General would be formed, what its composition should be and what voting procedures it should adopt.
Traditionally, the assembly had met as three separate estates. The First Estate (clergy) and Second Estate (nobility) both assembled in full regalia, seated to the right and left of the king, while the Third Estate (commoners) dressed in black and were seated at the rear.
Voting at the Estates-General was traditionally conducted by order – that is, each of the Three Estates deliberated on matters separately and cast one vote in unison. This meant the Third Estate, which represented around 97 per cent of the people, was regularly outvoted by the First and Second Estates, which represented the remaining three per cent.
These precedents dated back to the previous Estates-General in 1614, however, so 175 years on, it was unclear what format or procedures the Estates-General should or would adopt.
The issue of voting
The question was partly answered in September 1788 when the Paris parlement, now recalled by the king, issued the edicts summoning the Estates-General. According to these edicts, the Estates-General was to adopt its 1614 form and procedures, with the Three Estates meeting separately and voting by order.
This triggered outrage among the bourgeoisie and in the pages of newspapers. The parlements, previously hailed as defenders of liberty and the people, were now condemned as servants of aristocratic self-interest. This gave rise to two slogans: “voting by head” (a call for votes to be decided by the ballots of individual deputies) and “doubling the Third” (a demand that representation for the Third Estate be increased twofold).
In November 1788 the king, acting on the advice of Jacques Necker, recalled the Assembly of Notables to examine the issue. The Notables only confirmed the ruling of the parlements, insisting on the procedures of 1614.
On December 27th the king, by way of compromise, agreed to double the number of seats for deputies from the Third Estate. The question of voting, however, was left unresolved. This was significant because no matter how many deputies were elected to represent the Third Estate, its voting power remained unchanged.
Electing deputies
On January 24th, 1789 Louis XVI issued another edict, providing instructions for electing deputies to the Estates-General. Since the Ancien Régime had no framework for national elections, one had to be designed and implemented from the ground up.
For the First and Second Estate, each bailliage formed an electoral assembly to elect its deputies. All nobles and clerics could attend these assemblies and participate in elections.
The election of Third Estate deputies was more complex and involved several different stages. In the countryside, male taxpayers over the age of 25 were invited to participate in parish assemblies, which elected representatives to bailliage assemblies.
In the towns and cities, there was an extra stage, with guilds and corporations sending representatives to a town assembly, which chose representatives to attend the bailliage assembly. The bailliage assemblies were responsible for electing deputies, as well as the compilation and submission of the cahiers de doléance.
Was it representative?
As might be assumed, this lengthy and indirect process was designed to keep radical voices at arm’s length from decision-making in the Estates-General. In addition, deputies to the Estates-General needed to be wealthy enough to pay their own way to Versailles and remain there for several weeks.
These factors shaped the composition of the Third Estate deputies, who were more representative of the bourgeoisie than the working classes. Of the 610 Third Estate deputies, almost half held some kind of venal office. Two-thirds were qualified in the law and about half that number were practising lawyers.
Only about 80 deputies were involved in trade or industry, most as business owners or managers. No peasants or salaried artisans sat as deputies.
The composition of the First and Second Estate representatives also revealed certain trends. Ordinary priests and clergymen dominated elections for the First Estate; as a result of this, 208 of the 296 First Estate deputies were parish priests while only 47 were bishops. Some 282 (or 70 per cent) of Second Estate delegates were military officers, serving or retired, while most of the remainder were landed aristocrats.
A historian’s view: “It is not at all surprising that most members of the Estates-General were not business people… They were otherwise occupied in the market-place, stock exchange and banks. On the contrary, it was lawyers who best understood the state and legal system and who generally were over-represented in such assemblies. Under the circumstances, it is actually surprising that 16 per cent of delegates to the Estates-General were directly connected to the world of commerce.”
Henry Heller