The
Estates-General (or
States-General)
of 1789 was the first meeting since 1614 of the
FrenchFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
Estates-GeneralIn France under the Ancient Regime, the States-General or Estates-General , was a legislative assembly of the different classes of French subjects. It had a separate assembly for each of the three estates, which were called and dismissed by the king...
, a general assembly representing the French collection of peoples. The independence from the Crown which it displayed paved the way for the
French RevolutionThe French Revolution was a period of political and social upheaval and radical change in the history of France, during which the French governmental structure, previously an absolute monarchy with feudal privileges for the aristocracy and Catholic clergy, underwent radical change to forms based...
.
Among the direct causes of the French Revolution was a massive financial crisis caused by France's enormous national debt, the lack of food and its outrageous prices, the desire to imitate the
American RevolutionThe American Revolution is the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which thirteen of Britain's colonies in North America at first rejected the governance of the Parliament of Great Britain, and later the British monarchy itself, to become the sovereign United States of...
, the government's lavish spending, and an archaic system of
taxTo tax is to impose a financial charge or other levy upon a taxpayer by a state or the functional equivalent of a state such that failure to pay is punishable by law.Taxes are also imposed by many subnational entities...
ation which brought little money to the national coffers though placing the tax burden upon the Third Estate (in theory, all of the commoners; in practice, the
bourgeoisieHistorically, the bourgeoisie were a social class of people, characterized by their ownership of capital and the related culture. They were a part of the middle or merchant classes of European feudalism, where their power came from employment, education, and wealth, as distinguished from those...
), while virtually ignoring the First Estate (the Clergy) and the Second Estate (the Nobility).
The
Estates-General (or
States-General)
of 1789 was the first meeting since 1614 of the
FrenchFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
Estates-GeneralIn France under the Ancient Regime, the States-General or Estates-General , was a legislative assembly of the different classes of French subjects. It had a separate assembly for each of the three estates, which were called and dismissed by the king...
, a general assembly representing the French collection of peoples. The independence from the Crown which it displayed paved the way for the
French RevolutionThe French Revolution was a period of political and social upheaval and radical change in the history of France, during which the French governmental structure, previously an absolute monarchy with feudal privileges for the aristocracy and Catholic clergy, underwent radical change to forms based...
.
Background
Among the direct causes of the French Revolution was a massive financial crisis caused by France's enormous national debt, the lack of food and its outrageous prices, the desire to imitate the
American RevolutionThe American Revolution is the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which thirteen of Britain's colonies in North America at first rejected the governance of the Parliament of Great Britain, and later the British monarchy itself, to become the sovereign United States of...
, the government's lavish spending, and an archaic system of
taxTo tax is to impose a financial charge or other levy upon a taxpayer by a state or the functional equivalent of a state such that failure to pay is punishable by law.Taxes are also imposed by many subnational entities...
ation which brought little money to the national coffers though placing the tax burden upon the Third Estate (in theory, all of the commoners; in practice, the
bourgeoisieHistorically, the bourgeoisie were a social class of people, characterized by their ownership of capital and the related culture. They were a part of the middle or merchant classes of European feudalism, where their power came from employment, education, and wealth, as distinguished from those...
), while virtually ignoring the First Estate (the Clergy) and the Second Estate (the Nobility). The first son of a noble family would go into the Second Estate; second son into the First Estate. Successive attempts at reforming the system had proven fruitless in the face of opposition from the First and Second Estates.
On 22 February 1787,
Charles Alexandre de CalonneCharles Alexandre, vicomte de Calonne was a French statesman, best known for his involvement in the French Revolution.-Rise to prominence:...
, the minister of finances, convened an
Assembly of NotablesThe Assembly of Notables was of a group of notables invited by the King of France to discuss reform of the government.-History:Assemblies of Notables had met in 1583, 1596-97, 1617, 1626, 1787, and 1788. These assemblies included royal princes, peers, archbishops, important judges, and, in some...
to deal with the financial situation. On 13 July, the assembly demanded that
Louis XVILouis XVI of France ruled as King of France and of Navarre from 1774 until 1791, and then as King of the French from 1791 to 1792. Suspended and arrested during the Insurrection of 10 August 1792, he was tried by the National Convention, found guilty of treason, and executed by guillotine on 21...
call the General States, and on 18 December, the king promised to do so within five years. By this time, Calonne had been succeeded as finance minister by his chief critic,
Étienne Charles de Loménie de BrienneÉtienne Charles de Loménie de Brienne was a French churchman, politician and finance minister of Louis XVI.-Life:...
; In turn, Brienne was succeeded by
Jacques NeckerJacques Necker was a French statesman of Swiss birth and finance minister of Louis XVI, a post he held in the lead-up to the French Revolution in 1789.-Early life:Necker was born in Geneva, Switzerland...
, a former finance minister who was sympathetic to the Third Estate. With Necker once again in charge of the nation's finances, the King, on 8 August 1788, agreed to call the Estates-General on May 5th of 1789.
Preparation
The prospect of an Estates-General highlighted the conflict of interest between the Second and Third Estates. The First Estate and the Second Estate together represented only 3% of France's national population. The Third Estate, theoretically representing the other 97% of the French population, in practice represented an increasing proportion of the country's wealth. But the other two Estates, which historically had often voted with each other, could still outvote it. The Estates General of 1789 was the first time the Third Estate had been allowed to participate in the government. Many of this rising class nonetheless saw the calling of the Estates-General as a chance to gain
powerPower is a measure of an entity's ability to control the environment around itself, including the behavior of other entities. The term authority is often used for power, perceived as legitimate by the social structure. Power can be seen as evil or unjust, but the exercise of power is accepted as...
.
According to the model of 1614, the Estates-General would consist of equal numbers of representatives from each Estate. The Third Estate demanded double representation, which they already had in the provincial assemblies. This became a topic for pamphleteers, the most notable pamphlet
What is the Third Estate?Qu'est-ce que le tiers état? is a pamphlet written by Abbé Sieyès in January 1789. In it, Sieyès argued that the Third Estate was a complete nation and would be better off without the "dead weight" of the privileged orders....
coming from the pen of Abbé Sieyès.
NeckerJacques Necker was a French statesman of Swiss birth and finance minister of Louis XVI, a post he held in the lead-up to the French Revolution in 1789.-Early life:Necker was born in Geneva, Switzerland...
, hoping to avoid conflict, convened a second assembly of notables on 6 November 1788, but, to his chagrin, they rejected the notion of double representation. By calling the assembly, Necker had merely underlined the nobles' opposition to the inevitable policy.
The royal decree of 27 December 1788 announced that the Estates-General would amount to at least a thousand deputies, and granted double representation of the Third Estate. The further liberalization of the process, mere
parish priestA priest or priestess is a person having the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particular, rites of sacrifice to, and propitiation of, a deity or deities. Their office or position is the priesthood, a term which may also apply to such persons collectively.Priests and priestesses...
s (
curés) could serve as deputies for the First Estate, and
ProtestantsProtestantism is a branch within Christianity, containing many denominations with some differing practices and doctrines, that principally originated in the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation. It is considered to be one of the major divisions within Christianity, together with the Roman...
could be deputed to the Third Estate.
According to historian
François MignetFrançois Auguste Marie Mignet was a French journalist and historian.-Biography:François-Auguste Mignet was born in Aix-en-Provence , France. His father was a locksmith from the Vendée, who enthusiastically accepted the principles of the French Revolution and encouraged liberal ideas in his son...
, after reasonably honest elections, "The deputation of the nobility comprised two hundred and forty-two gentlemen, and twenty-eight members of the
ParlementThe political institutions of the Parlement in ancien régime France developed out of the previous council of the king, the Conseil du roi or curia regis, and consequently had ancient and customary rights of consultation and deliberation. In the thirteenth century, judicial functions were added...
; that of the clergy, of forty-eight archbishops or bishops, thirty-five abbés or deans, and two hundred and eight curés; and that of the communes, of two ecclesiastics, twelve noblemen, eighteen magistrates of towns, two hundred county members, two hundred and twelve barristers, sixteen physicians, and two hundred and sixteen merchants and agriculturists." Other sources give slightly different numbers; one French-language source gives the breakdown for the First Estate of "270 representatives of the nobility (90 of them liberals), for the Second Estate: 206 curés and 85 higher clergy, for the Third Estate 578 representatives including 200 lawyers, 3 priests, and 11 nobles.
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The Estates-General convenes
When the Estates-General convened in
VersaillesVersailles , a city renowned for its château, the Palace of Versailles, was the de facto capital of the kingdom of France for over a century, from 1682 to 1789. It is now a wealthy suburb of Paris and remains an important administrative and judicial center...
on 5 May 1789 amidst general festivities, many in the Third Estate viewed the double representation as a revolution already peacefully accomplished. However, with the etiquette of 1614 strictly enforced, the clergy and nobility in their full regalia, and the physical locations of the deputies from the three estates dictated by the protocol, an immediate impression emerged that less had, in fact, been achieved.
When Louis XVI and
Charles Louis François de Paule de BarentinCharles Louis François de Paule de Barentin was a French statesman and Keeper of the Seals of France at the end of the reign of Louis XVI. He was born in Paris on 1 July 1738 and died in Paris on 30 May 1819....
, the Keeper of the Seals, addressed the deputies on 6 May, the Third Estate discovered that royal decree granting double representation also upheld the traditional voting "by orders", i.e. that the collective vote of each Estate would be weighed equally.
The apparent intent of the King and of Barentin was for everyone to get directly to the matter of taxes. The larger representation of the Third Estate would remain merely a symbol, while giving them no extra power. Necker had more sympathy for the Third Estate, but on this occasion he spoke only about the fiscal situation, leaving it to Barentin to speak on how the Estates-General was to operate.
Trying to avoid the issue of representation and focus solely on taxes, the king and his ministers had gravely misjudged the situation. The Third Estate wanted the Estates to meet as one body and vote per deputy ("voting by heads" rather than "by orders"). The other two estates, while having their own grievances against royal absolutism, believed — correctly, as history was to prove — that they stood to lose more power to the Third Estate than they stood to gain from the King. Necker sympathized with the Third Estate in this matter, but the astute financier lacked equal astuteness as a politician. He decided to let the
impasse play out to the point of stalemate before he would enter the fray. As a result, by the time the King yielded to the demand of the Third Estate, it seemed to all as a concession wrung from the monarchy, rather than a magnanimous gift that would have convinced the populace of the king's good will.
Proceedings and dissolution
The Estates-General reached an impasse. The first item on the agenda involved the verification of powers. Honoré Mirabeau, noble himself but elected to represent the Third Estate, tried but failed to keep all three orders in a single room for this discussion. Instead of discussing taxes of the King, the three Estates began to discuss separately the organization of the legislature. Shuttle diplomacy continued without success until 27 May, when the nobles voted to stand firm for separate verification. The following day, Abbé Sieyès (a member of the clergy, but, like Mirabeau, elected to represent the Third Estate) moved that the representatives of the Third Estate, who now called themselves the
Communes ("Commons"), proceed with verification and invite the other two Estates to take part, but not to wait for them.
On 13 June 1789 the Third Estate had arrived at a resolution to examine and settle in common the powers of the three orders, and invited to this common work those of the clergy and nobles.
On 17 June, with the failure of efforts to reconcile the three Estates, the
Communes completed their own process of verification and almost immediately voted a measure far more radical: they declared themselves redefined as the
National AssemblyDuring the French Revolution, the National Assembly , which existed from June 17 to July 9 of 1789, was a transitional body between the Estates-General and the National Constituent Assembly.-Background:...
, 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.
The King tried to resist. Under the influence of the courtiers of his
privy councilA privy council is a body that advises the head of state of a nation on how to exercise their executive authority, typically, but not always, in the context of a monarchic government...
, he resolved to go in state to the Assembly, annul its decrees, command the separation of the orders, and dictate the reforms to be effected by the restored Estates-General. On 20 June he ordered the
Salle des États, the hall where the National Assembly met, closed. The Assembly moved their deliberations to the King's tennis court, where they proceeded to swear the
Tennis Court OathThe Tennis Court Oath was a pivotal event during the French Revolution. The Oath was a pledge signed by 576 out of the 577 members from the Third Estate and a few members of the First Estate during a meeting of the Estates-General of 20 June 1789 in a tennis court building near the Palace of...
, under which they agreed not to separate until they had settled the
constitutionA constitution is a set of rules for government—often codified as a written document—that establishes principles of an autonomous political entity. In the case of countries, this term refers specifically to a national constitution defining the fundamental political principles, and establishing the...
of France. Two days later, deprived of use of the tennis court as well, the Assembly met in the church of Saint Louis, where the majority of the representatives of the clergy joined them: efforts to restore the old order had served only to accelerate events. The king gave the people more fuel to keep going and make change happen.
In the
séance royale of 23 June, the King granted a
Charte octroyée, a constitution granted from the royal favour, which affirmed, subject to the traditional limitations, the right of separate deliberation for the three orders, which constitutionally formed three chambers. This move failed; soon, that part of the deputies of the nobles who still stood apart joined the National Assembly at the request of the king. The Estates-General had ceased to exist, having become the National Assembly (and after 9 July 1789, the
National Constituent AssemblyThe National Constituent Assembly was formed from the National Assembly on 9 July 1789, during the first stages of the French Revolution. It dissolved on 30 September 1791 and was succeeded by the Legislative Assembly.-Background:...
), though these bodies consisted of the same men.