¶ … Third Estate and the French Revolution
The underlying cause of the French revolution was the state of the French society. The society was highly stratified and unequal with social, political, economic, and legal amenities available to the population based on privilege. There were three main social orders, comprising of the first, second, and third estate. The first order consisted of the clergy who owned a tenth of the total land of France, were exempt from Taille or chief tax (Duiker and Spielvogel 450). The second estate comprised of the nobility, who owned between 25% and 30% of the land. These held most of the leading positions in the military, government, law courts, and higher church offices (Roberts 45). The nobles were also tax exempted, especially from Tille, and sought to expand their power and the monarch. The third estate comprised of the commoners, who overwhelmingly made up the majority of the population between 75 to 80% (Duiker and Spielvogel 450). This estate was subdivided according to the level of education, wealth, and occupation. They owned 35 to 40% of the land, with landholdings varying, and with many without title of the lands. Sixteenth and seventeenth century France no longer considered the use of serfdom, but the third estate still had some obligations to their local property owners (Duiker and Spielvogel 450). It is this third estate that is the focus of this essay. The essay explores the constitution, the grievances, and contribution to the French revolution.
The first group in the third estate was made up of peasants who comprised 75% of the population. The peasant's grievances consisted of the complaints of their oppression from obligations to the property owners. The property owners required aristocratic privileges like the payment of fees for the use of facilities in the village like the winepress, flourmill, and community oven (Duiker and Spielvogel 450). The second group in the third estate comprised of skilled craftsmen, wage earners, and shopkeepers. By the 17th century, consumer prices had risen higher and faster than wages, driving urban businesses to experience a decline in purchasing power of the masses. In a...
The third group in the third estate comprised of the middle class bourgeoisie, who made up 8% of the population, and owned 20-25% of the land. The group was made up of bankers, industrialists, and merchants who controlled resource in manufacturing, trade, and finance (Roberts 45). They benefited from economic prosperity especially after 1730. This group also comprised of the third estate educated middle class like lawyers, doctors, public officers, and writers.
Notably different sets of third estate French had their own grievances since they were excluded from the privileges monopolized by the noble community. For example, the middle class industrialists, merchants, lawyers, bankers, and doctors, where experiencing economic and wealth prosperity, but still were denied the privileges of the aristocracy and bourgeoisie nobles (Roberts 46). The monarch system rested privileges and old social order to the ideals of the estates that industrialists and merchants with higher economic prosperity could not climb up the social ladder (Spielvogel 402). The middle class industrialists and well to do French men emerged in the business sector to oppose the social order and the elites. This third estate of middle class wealthy businesspersons, took drastic actions against the monarch regime because the government was extravagant on expenditure on royal spending and costly wars (Spielvogel 402). The government was quickly falling short of funds to run the monarch and government, such that is resulted to borrowing in 1788 (Roberts 46). The middle class third estate, felt they could not lend money to a government whose interests on debts were more than the government is spending. Moreover, with the government continually lacking money to lend from financial lenders, the country was on the verge of complete financial collapse (Spielvogel 402).
The other problem for the third estate was the French's monarch refusal to accept and deal with social realities especially in 1780. Prior to the 1787 and 1788,…
