The Role Of The Third Estate During The French Revolution

Even though the Third Estate made up the majority of the population, they only got one vote. As seen in the chart based off of the three estates in France during 1789, 97%of the citizens created the Third Estate (Doc 2). One vote for 97% of the population was unequal, and no one’s voice was heard separately. The Third Estate had only one vote, the First and Second Estate were able to pass anything that pleased them. According to the English Bill of Rights written by the English Parliament, “That the pretended power of suspending of the laws or the execution of law is regal authority without consent of Parliament is illegal…” (Doc 8) The English had the same issue and solved it earlier. France should have inferred that the issues would appear and used the English’s struggles and solutions for their own good. The First and Second Estates did everything in their power for the Third Estate to have very minimal

The French Revolution occurred from 1789 to 1799. A major issue during this time period in France was social classes, which included the First, Second, and Third Estate. The First and Second Estate had freedom, rights, and equality while the Third Estate had almost nothing. Third Estate got no recognition for their work, while the French Church had problems with voting, and salaries. The Third Estate formed the National Assembly to write The Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen and The Civil Constitution of the Clergy. They wrote them to help fix the problems that caused the revolution. The causes of the French revolution are the French Church, the inequality of the Estates, and the minimal freedom and rights that the Third Estate has.

During the 18th century, the flow of Enlightenment ideas helped spark many political movements. The French Revolution refers to a period in which citizens call for reforms due to the political, economic and social differences between them and the monarchy. The absence of political representation and empathy from the nobility, the financial crisis and the desire for equality between all the classes inspired the people of France to start a revolution. In France, the third estate had almost no political representation while the first and second estate had totally power over everything that happened.

During the time of the French Revolution in 1789, there were many tensions across political, social, and economic classes. There were extreme divisions between the 3rd Estate and the 1st and 2nd Estate, leading to multiple removals and reinstatements of leaders. While many issues were involved with the French Revolution, there were three that were the most vital to it actually occurring. The three most critical causes of the French Revolution were the Enlightenment, the oppression of the Third Estate, and the general fiscal crisis of France.

The First and Second Estates were free from taxes, which led to the Third Estate, primarily peasantry, being heavily tax. Due to King Louis XIV’s Palace of Versaille, and his extreme deficit spending, an extreme overspending of the government’s money leading to debt, taxes became heavier and heavier. This was an extremely heavy burden on the Third Estate considering that they had low income to begin with, while the first two estates were swimming in money. When peasants couldn't afford to make bread because of taxes, then bread prices inflated (Doc. 1). The prices were more than the peasants could afford, so this led to riots and disturbances, which were the roots to the beginning of a revolution (Doc.

The establishment of the National Assembly that integrated different classes of people into one government signifies the growing public voice in political arena as citizens urged an end to hunger and unfair taxation system. Ever since King XVI summoned the Estates General to tackle the problems of food shortage and economic crisis, the Third Estate, who represented every French except the clergies and the nobles, has been constantly demanding for more voting rights to make people’s hardship known to the king and the other two estates. They thus assembled lists of grievances from citizens throughout France which called for a limit to

During the period of the French Revolution, a quest towards gaining a country with equal rights for all, began flourishing. This was influenced by the want for freedom, equality, and independence. Most of the wealth during the French Revolution belonged to the 1st and 2nd estates, otherwise known as the clergy and the nobles, which made up 3% of the population. The 3rd estate, the rest of society, made up 97% of the population. Unfortunately, the people of the third estate did not receive all of the commodities as the first and second estates, and could not say or do anything about it.

There were three Estates during the French Revolution. The First Estate was, the Clergy, it consisted of those employed by the Catholic Church. They had great influence in France, controlling vast amounts of land and were exempt from taxes. The Second Estate, the Nobility, were also exempt from most of the king taxes. They had the best and highest paid jobs in the army, church, and legal professions. The Third Estate, encompassing all the other people not in the other classes. This held the biggest percent of the population and had the greatest economic and social diversity. The vast amount of people in the Third Estate were starved and ragged because of the ever-increasing taxes they had to pay. Because the other two estates did not have to pay taxes, this made it even more difficult for the peasants to survive. The constitution also made the king the absolute

Governments had to raise taxes and start borrowing money from their own people, such as nobles. According to Jacob Soll in The Reckoning, the only way to lower the debt and interest rates in France was to tax the nobility. They were the greatest landowners and owned 90% of France’s

The Third Estate was a social class which was established by Emmanuel Joseph Sieyes in 1789, right before the French revolution. This Third Estate had goals of gaining freedoms that the other “estates” had at the time. The Third Estate was defined majorly as the common people of France or the middle class, while the first estate was made up of the clergy of the church and the second estate was made up of the french nobility and monarchs. This Third Estate ultimately played a major factor in spurring on the French Revolution by igniting the passions of those trying to achieve freedoms among the French population.

One major cause of the old regime were the taxes and laws between the three estates. As seen in Document 2, “the 3rd estate paid 50% of income in taxes while the 1st and 2nd paid less than 5%” (Doc 2). This clearly shows that the most populated estate, the third estate, paid half of their income as their taxes. Larger amounts of taxes the third estate paid versus the lower amount of taxes for the first and second estates. Another significant cause was the unequal three estates and the third estate was overpowered. The third estate had more power in laws and taxes and their relationship with the lower estates were not good. As demonstrated in Document 7, the cartoon of the “The political and social system in France” (Doc 7). This cartoon proves the relationship between the third estate and the two lower estates. The lower estates didn’t have anything to do with taxes and laws and the third estates were all in laws and taxes. The final

The third estate did achieve many of its goals. The third estate was able to write its own constitution. In this constitution they outlaid the rights that would be given to the peasants and even declared that all men were created equal. The third estate took power over France for the three years following the beheading of king Louis XVI. During this time period the government was liberal and introduced equality to the market place.

In the beginning of the 19th century the transcendentalist movement took hold in Boston, Massachusetts. Having its roots in English and German romanticism, transcendentalism believed that nature and all people are inherently good, and that society and its institutions only help to corrupt people. According to this philosophy put its faith in the individuals within society to decide what is right. In his masterpiece novel The Scarlet Letter, transcendentalist Nathaniel Hawthorne addresses that conclusion. Hawthorne uses the characters of Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale to assert the transcendentalist belief that one’s own conscience is the best determinant of right and wrong.

Before the revolution France was ruled under the Ancien Regime system, meaning the country and all its people were under the reign of an absolute monarch. This was a tradition that had been upheld through the years and the Royal family had enjoyed a life funded by the people of France, the royal family’s lifestyle unaffected by the situation outside their palace. The Palace, Versailles, was built by king Louis XIV and the expenses for building this “village” was very high, and in later years the cost for its upkeep would play a significant role in Frances financial difficulties. In order for these difficulties to be overcome France needed a tax reform. The government had a very high tax rate on the poorest of their people, the Third Estate, and they were still not getting enough money to get out of their

In France, before the French Revolution, the governing body was called the Old Regime. Under Louis XIV and his queen Marie Antoinette, the French society was divided up into three groups. These groups were called the three estates. In this system, the first two estates lived very well while the third estate was very impoverished. This paired with the lack of a strong leader (Louis XIV) caused rising tensions in the third estate. This eventually led to revolution. The main cause of this was the layout of the Old Regime. The Old Regime was made up of three estates that were very different in their governmental abilities and their amount of money.