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What Was The First Estate During The French Revolution

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What Was The First Estate During The French Revolution
French Revolution The Old Regime was the way the French society was organized before the French revolution. It was more of the political system of France and separated people into three different social classes. These classes were the first estate, second estate, and the third estate. The first estate was made up of the clergy from the roman catholic church. The first estate was only one percent of the population. The second estate included the nobles, they made up about two percent of the population. The first two estates were also known as the privileged estates because they both did not agree with the Enlightenment ideas. They didn’t agree these ideas because they believe that it threatened their power and status. The third estate was …show more content…
The first estate which was made up the clergy they were thought of as the highest class, they had a tremendous amount of power but only made up about 1 percent of the whole population. The second estate was made up of the nobles but only made up about 2 percent of the entire population. Both the first and second estate were not required to pay taxes. The third estate was almost the entire country they made up about 97 percent of the population. The third estate was made up of many different groups, they had the bourgeoisie which were at the top of the class, they also had the peasants which were the middle of the third estate and finally the bottom of the third estate were the city workers, they were underpaid and overworked. The problem with the estates general was that people started to begin to question the inequalities of the society. (The French Revolution) People began to ask why did the first and second estate live a wealthy privileged life while the 3rd estate had to pay all of the …show more content…
The main purpose was to get the assembly’s consent for a reform. The third estate expressed their aspirations and showed that the nation and themselves are basically identical (French Revolution). Then the main question was whether or not the 3 estates should vote separately or all meet and vote together by head, which would mean the 3rd estate would have the majority of the vote. The third estate began to call themselves the National Assembly on June 17th. Finally, the king closed their meeting place and moved the meeting to a tennis court and the estate took and oath saying they would not leave until the constitution had been made (French Revolution). On June 27th the King legalized the National Assembly. Because of this, this was another main factor of the French

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