They had 578 delegates compared to 291 from the clergy and 270 from the nobility, i.e., an absolute majority. But on December 27, 1788, the French Council of State had taken the unprecedented decision to double the number of representatives from the third state.Īware of their majority, the members of the third state, formed by the bourgeoisie and the common people, asked at the May 1789 meeting for each representative to have one vote. In the 487 years that passed between their first convocation and the last one in 1789 they only met 21 times, always because of some financial or political crisis.Įach of the three states had approximately the same number of representatives, but the vote was collective, which in practice meant that the nobility and clergy, traditionally allies, always imposed their views.
The States General were an assembly, created by Philip IV in 1302, which brought together representatives from each of the estates of the Old Regime: the clergy (first state), the nobility (second state) and the representatives of the cities that had a consistory (third state). Vision of the three states before the Revolution, in a painting by Nicolas Perseval (h.1789) / photo Garitan on Wikimedia CommonsĮverything has its origin in the French Revolution and, more specifically, in the convocation of the States General by King Louis XVI on May 5, 1789.
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