Download Abbé Sieyès, What is the Third Estate?

Social Causes of the French Revolution
The Three Estates
NO, I DID NOT DRAW THIS.
Three Estates: Three Statistics
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
Clergy
Nobility
Commoners
Land
Ownership
Taxation
Population
Land Ownership
Satirical Images of the Three
Estates
First Estate: Clergy
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.05 – 1% of the
French population
Owned 10 %- 15%
of the land
This land was held
tax-free.
Collected tithes from
Third Estate.
Cardinal Richelieu, the architect of
Louis XIV's absolutist regime.
Clergy divided into the lower and upper clergy
Upper Clergy: Bishops and abbots: men who regarded their office as a
way of securing a larger income and the landed property that went with
it. Most of the upper clergy sold their offices to subordinates, kept the
revenue, and lived in Paris or at the seat of royal government at
Versailles.
Lower Clergy: Humble, poorly-paid and overworked village priests
As a group, they resented the wealth
and arrogance of the upper clergy.
Second Estate: Nobles
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Philippe I, duc d’Orleans, Louis
XIV's brother
1.5 – 2% of the French
population
Owned 20 % of the land
As an order, they were
virtually exempt from
paying taxes of any kind.
Collected rent and dues
from the peasant
population who lived on
their lands.
Like the clergy, there were two
levels of nobility
Nobility of the Sword: served their King at his court in Versailles.
Many members of this order were of ancient lineage their family history could be traced back hundreds of years.
Nobility of the Robe: members of this estate who were relative
newcomers. Had prestige, but much less than the Nobility of the Sword.
Created by the monarchy in the past. French kings needed money, so it
seemed logical to offer position and status to those men who were willing
to pay enough money for it. King could also keep an eye on their
behavior. This is one reason why Louis XIV built Versailles in the first
place. Originally a vast hunting lodge, Louis built up Versailles in order to
house his generals, ministers and other court suck-ups.
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Nobility collected dues as
well…
Le Corvee:
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labor dues collected from
peasants on salt, cloth,
bread, wine and the use
mills, granaries, presses
and ovens.
By the 18th century, they
were also becoming involved
in banking, finance,
shipping, insurance and
manufacturing.
French peasants repairing a wheel
on a cart.
The Second Estate were also the leading patrons
of the arts, and many attended salons.
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Some of the lesser nobility offered their
homes and their salons to the likes of
Voltaire, Diderot and Rousseau.
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During the early days of the Revolution,
these men were considered "liberal
nobles." They wished to see an end to
royal absolutism but not necessarily the
end of the monarchy.
These liberal nobles tended to look to
France's traditional enemy, England, as
a model for what France ought to
become, a limited or constitutional
monarchy.
Third Estate: Bourgeoisie, Peasants,
Urban Workers
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97 - 98% of the
French population
Bourgeoisie owned
30% of the land
Peasants owned 40
– 45% of the land
Essentially
responsible for
all taxes.
Third Estate
The Bourgeoisie: Middle class included bankers, merchants and
manufacturers.
The bulk of the third estate were made up of rural landowners and
peasants.
Finally, the poorest members were the urban (City) workers: printers,
clothing makers, porters, construction workers and street sellers.
Bourgeoisie

This group had wealth. In some cases,
enormous wealth.
(“Success" in 18th century France meant
status and privilege. However, wealth in
the ancien regime did not mean status or
privilege.)
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Wealth was nothing without status.
Bourgeoisie were influenced by the nobility
and tried to imitate them whenever possible.
Upwardly mobile, but felt frustrated and
blocked by the nobility.
1789
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By 1789, the bourgeoisie controlled 20% of all
the land.
Bourgeoisie had numerous grievances:
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Wanted all Church, army and government positions
open to men of talent and merit.
Sought a Parliament that would make all the laws
for the nation.
Desired a constitution that would limit the king's
powers.
Desired fair trials, religious toleration and vast
administrative reforms.
Peasantry
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French peasants’ standard of living was perhaps
better than the European peasantry in general.
However, they continued to live in utmost poverty.
Most peasants did not own their land, but rather
rented it from wealthier peasants or nobility.
Supplemented income by hiring themselves out as
day laborers, textile workers or manual laborers.
Victimized by heavy taxation.
Peasants paid taxes to the king, the church as well as
taxes and dues to the lord of the manor. They also
paid numerous indirect taxes on wine, salt, and bread.
Peasants also owed their lord a labor obligation.
1789
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By 1789, Peasantry owned 30-40% of
the available land, but mostly in small,
semi-feudal plots.
Taxes were increased, as well as rent.
Peasants used antiquated methods of
agriculture.
Prices continued to rise at a quicker
rate than wages. To make matters
worse, there was the poor harvest of
1788/89.
Urban Workers
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Urban workers (or
artisans) as a group
consisted of all
journeymen, factory
workers and wage
earners.
Urban poor also lived in
poverty.
1789: Wages increased
by only 22% while the
cost of living increased
by 62%.
A large urban workers' riot, 4/28/1789
Louis–Sébastien Mercier, Portrait of Paris
(1783)

“An entire family occupies a single room with
four bare walls, where straw mattresses have
no sheets and kitchen utensils are kept with
the chamber pots. All together the furniture is
not worth twenty crowns and every three
months, the inhabitants, thrown out for owing
back rent, must find another hole to live in. So
they wander, taking their miserable
possessions from refuge to refuge. They own
no shoes, and only the sound of wooden clogs
echo in the stairwells. Their naked children
sleep helter-skelter.”
The Rise of the Third Estate
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1st. What is the third
estate? Everything.
2nd. What has it been
in the political order?
Nothing.
3rd. What does it
demand? To become
something.
~Abbé Sieyès,
What is the Third
Estate? (1789)
While technically an abbot (in title only, by
virtue of passing an ecclesiastical exam) Abbé
Sieyès was a leading theorist of the Revolution.