Estates General: Key Cause Of The French Revolution

Estates General The third estate was the key reason the French Revolution began due to the fact the it was unfairly treated in the government by the voting and taxing rules. There are three groups in the Estates General. The first estate, which was made up of the Roman Catholic clergy. The second estate was the nobility or the privileged minorities. The third estate was everyone else in the French kingdom, which was about 97% of the population. Between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the French monarchy had great power, and the Estates General did not meet between 1614 and 1789. After the long time, it is not a shock that the decision to assemble them in august 1788 is similar to a snake in the grass. Louis XVI

The peasants, already burdened by the food shortages, were increasingly aware of the injustice of the feudal system, where by the nobles enriched themselves through the toil and taxes of the commoner. At the 1789 meeting, a major problem arose regarding the organization of the Estates General. The nobility demanded a one vote per estate system, which meant that the third estate would outvoted by the combined forces of the aristocats. First and second estates, though as many in number as the first and second estates combined, the third estate could not exercise its majority under the voting rules. “Conflict quickly arose between the nobility and the third estate, which seceded from the Estates General on June 17, 1789 to form a new body, the French National Assembly” (“Estates-General”). Gathering at a close by tennis court, the National Assembly members swore the Tennis Court Oath to continue to meet until they had given France a constitution. Under ascending pressure, Louis XVI instructed the First and Second Estates to meet with the National Assembly and let voting to take place by head count rather than by estate. “Meanwhile, rumors were growing about an aristocratic conspiracy to overthrow the Third Estate, and as troops gathered around Paris, mobs broke into buildings looking for weapons during a three-day frenzy. On July 14, the uprising culminated in the storming of the Bastille, the armory-prison that had become a symbol of the tyranny of the ancien régime. After taking over the building, the mob massacred the staff and freed the prisoners” ("French Revolution"). The attack on the Bastille, a royal armory and prison, on July 14, 1789 marked the beginning of the French