France's 3 Estates: Source Analysis

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The source is portraying negative aspects of feudalism, specifically the 3 Estates that were present in France, and how vastly unfair and one-sided they were. Before the French Revolution, France had 3 Estates: the First Estate, made up of the clergy, the Second Estate, containing nobility, and the Third Estate, which was composed of commoners and everyone else. The artist of the source holds civic nationalist beliefs, and is depicting the contrast between the Estates and the exploitation of the Third Estate. Similar to the commoner at the bottom of the source, the Third Estate had nothing and completely supported the First and Second Estates. During the Age of Enlightenment, people began to value individual freedoms and realized the lack of