Estate During The French Revolution

During the time of the French Revolution there was an over-abundance of government tension between the aristocratic upper class and the people who made up the rest of France’s population. The political unease of the middle and lower class brought about the reconstruction of the French government. The transition to their new government set up, and the reasons behind it, are easily visible by looking at the history of the general estate, the national assembly, and the declaration of the right of man and citizen. From the time it was summoned in 1789 the estates general groups fought among themselves. The fact that two out of the three estates were made up of clergy, the first estate, and nobility, the second estate, meant the general population did not really have a say and could always be outnumbered two to three. The Priests Abbé Siéyès seems to have captured the air of the situation perfectly when he said, “What is the third estate? Everything. What has it been in the political order of the present? Nothing. What does it ask?

Consequently, the third estate would now have a majority voice in the voting if the general estate continued to vote by head instead of by order. When the representatives from the estates general gathered at the royal palace in May 1789 they brought lists of grievances, or cashiers de doléances to present to the King. Some of the main complaints listed on the cashiers were government waste, indirect taxes, church taxes, corruption, and the hunting rights of the aristocracy. The cashiers called for change and relentlessly pursued equal rights. On June first the third estate recruited a few priests to join them in creating a new legislative body. By June 17 they dubbed themselves the national assembly, then on June 19 the second estate voted to join