The Estates General

Reading: The Brink of Revolution: France's Perfect Storm (1789)

Introduction: A Kingdom in Crisis

In 1789, France was the superpower of Europe. It was a nation of 26 million people, a center of art and philosophy, and ruled by the absolute monarch King Louis XVI from the most magnificent palace on earth: Versailles. From the outside, France looked powerful. On the inside, it was a ticking time bomb, ready to explode.

The explosion—what we now call the French Revolution—was not caused by one single thing. It was the result of a "perfect storm" where three major crises hit the nation at the exact same time. First, the government was completely and totally bankrupt. Second, new and dangerous ideas of liberty and equality were spreading, challenging the entire system of monarchy. Finally, the people were literally starving.

This combination created a situation so volatile that it would tear the country apart and change the world forever.

Part 1: The Three Crises

Crisis #1: The Kingdom's Empty Pockets (The Debt Crisis)

To understand why France was broke, imagine your family had a credit card. Now imagine your parents used it to buy a new car, pay for a huge vacation, and loan money to your neighbors. At the same time, only one person in your family had a job to pay the bill, while the other family members (who spent the most) refused to work or contribute. Soon, you wouldn't even be able to afford groceries. This is exactly what was happening in France.

  1. A Century of War: The biggest expense was France's obsession with fighting wars, especially against its rival, Great Britain. The Seven Years' War (which you might know as the French and Indian War) was a disastrous and expensive loss for France.

  2. The "American" Bill: To get revenge on Britain, France made a fateful decision: it would help the 13 American colonies win their independence. This was a financial catastrophe. France sent soldiers, ships, and over a billion livres (the French currency) to fund the war. This single event nearly doubled France's national debt.

  3. An Unfair Tax System: The debt from these wars could have been managed if the tax system wasn't completely broken. French society was divided into Three Estates (or classes):

    • The First Estate (The Clergy): The Church. It owned 10% of all the land in France and was incredibly wealthy. It paid almost no taxes.

    • The Second Estate (The Nobility): The rich, land-owning aristocrats. They held the best jobs in the government and military. They, too, were exempt from almost all major taxes.

    • The Third Estate (Everyone Else): This was 97% of the population. It included everyone from doctors and lawyers (the bourgeoisie) to urban workers and poor peasant farmers. The Third Estate had almost no land, no power, and paid all of the taxes. They paid a land tax (the taille), a hated salt tax (the gabelle), and even had to perform unpaid labor for their noble landlords (the corvée).

  4. Royal Spending: While the people were being crushed by taxes, King Louis XVI and his wife, Queen Marie Antoinette, lived in unimaginable luxury at Versailles. The Queen, originally from France's other great enemy, Austria, became a symbol of this out-of-control spending. While her personal spending was only a small part of the national debt, it was a public relations disaster.

Crisis #2: The "American" Idea (The Ideological Crisis)

The American Revolution did more than just drain France's treasury; it also infected France with a dangerous idea: Revolution.

French soldiers like the Marquis de Lafayette, who had served alongside George Washington, returned home as heroes. They brought with them first-hand accounts of a people who had overthrown a king and built a new republic based on the ideas of liberty, equality, and "no taxation without representation."

This was deeply ironic and destabilizing. King Louis XVI, an absolute monarch, had bankrupted his own country to help create a republic that declared all men are created equal.

These ideas were discussed in pamphlets, coffeehouses, and salons all over Paris. The educated members of the Third Estate (the bourgeoisie) read the new American Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. They began to ask pointed questions:

  • "Why are we paying all the taxes while the lazy nobles pay nothing? That's taxation without representation!"

  • "Why does a person's birth (as a noble) give them more rights than a wealthy, educated doctor or lawyer?"

  • "If the Americans can govern themselves, why can't we?"

The American Revolution provided a practical, successful blueprint for how to act on these  ideas. It turned abstract philosophy into a real-world possibility.

Crisis #3: "Let Them Eat Cake?" (The Hunger Crisis)

As the government was collapsing financially and new ideas were challenging the monarchy, a more immediate crisis was unfolding: a natural disaster that led to mass hunger.

In the 1700s, the single most important food in a poor person's diet was bread. A worker’s family might spend 60-80% of their daily income on bread alone. Their entire life depended on the wheat harvest.

The crisis began with a severe drought in the spring of 1788. Then, a freak hailstorm pounded the country, flattening the crops. As if this weren't bad enough, the winter of 1788-1789 became one of the coldest in a century.1 Rivers and water wheels froze, making it impossible to transport grain or grind flour.

Prices skyrocketed. By the spring of 1789, a single loaf of bread cost 80-90% of a worker's entire daily wage.

People were cold, unemployed, and starving. They were filled with rage.

This was the context for the famous (and likely untrue) story about Marie Antoinette. When told that the people of Paris had no bread, she supposedly replied, "Qu'ils mangent de la brioche" ("Let them eat cake"). Whether she said it or not, people believed she said it. It perfectly symbolized a monarchy that was both bankrupt and completely out of touch.

Part 2: The Showdown at Versailles (The Estates-General)

By 1789, France was out of options. The government couldn't even pay the interest on its loans. Desperate, King Louis XVI did the only thing he could: he called a meeting of the Estates-General (a type of emergency parliament made up of representatives of all 3 estates) for the first time in 175 years.


His goal was simple: to get approval for new taxes to solve the debt crisis.

But the representatives of the Third Estate were not just thinking about bank loans. They were fired up by the ideological crisis and the success of the American Revolution. And they brought with them the anger of the hunger crisis from their starving villages.

The critical argument began immediately over one simple rule: how they would vote.

  1. The Old Rule: Voting by Estate. For centuries, the rule was that each estate voted as a single bloc. The First Estate (Clergy) got one vote. The Second Estate (Nobility) got one vote. The Third Estate (Everyone Else) got one vote.

  2. The Problem: The Clergy and Nobility (the 3%) would always vote together to protect their tax exemptions. This meant they could outvote the Third Estate (the 97%) 2-to-1 on every issue.

  3. The Third Estate's Demand: Voting by Head. The Third Estate demanded that every single representative get one vote. This was the only way they could ever win a vote on tax reform.

The King and the privileged estates refused. For six weeks, the argument was a stalemate. Finally, on June 17, 1789, the Third Estate, inspired by the American example, made a revolutionary move. They declared that they were the only true representatives of the nation and renamed themselves the National Assembly.

King Louis XVI panicked. On June 20, he locked them out of their meeting hall. The defiant representatives simply moved to a nearby indoor tennis court. There, they swore the famous Tennis Court Oath , a solemn pledge not to go home until they had written a new constitution for France. They were, in effect, pulling an "American" move: declaring that political power came from the people, not the King.

Part 3: The King's Failed Opportunity

This was the King's last chance. He was at a crossroads. He could have imitated his ancestor, Louis XIV, side with the First and Second Estates, call in the army, and try to crush the National Assembly. Or, he could do the unthinkable: abandon the nobles and side with the Third Estate.

This was the great "what if" of the revolution. If Louis XVI had been a stronger, more decisive leader, he could have walked into the Estates-General and announced his support for "voting by head." He could have allied with the Third Estate.

Together, they would have had the votes to pass the one reform that could have saved France: rationalizing the tax system. They could have abolished the tax exemptions for the Church and the nobility. For the first time, the wealthiest people in France would have been forced to pay their fair share.

This new flood of tax money could have been used to pay down the national debt, securing new loans to buy emergency grain for the starving population. It would have calmed the panic in Paris, stabilized the economy, and likely preserved the monarchy, though as a constitutional monarchy (like in England) rather than an absolute one.

Instead, Louis XVI hesitated and let a dysfunctional tax system continue as normal. This proved to be a fatal mistake.

Questions

Instructions: After completing the reading, answer the following questions in complete sentences, using specific evidence from the text to support your answers.

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