The French Revolution was a movement of the Third Estate (as the commoner class was known) against the elites who controlled all power in France. The 3rd Estate was the bulk of the people (98% of the population), all considered "commoners." (The clergy and nobility were the 1st and 2nd Estates.) So, the 3rd Estate included those from a wealthy, bourgeois wine merchant to a day laborer in the city or a peasant farmer in the countryside. The initial leaders of the Revolution came from a bourgeois background.
When the Revolution began, it was difficult for the bourgeois leaders to manage the new government in a way that met the concerns and demands of the poorer classes (city workers and rural peasants). So the discontent of the poor and the peasants were a problem for the French National Convention. So too was the rise of the Jacobin movement, a more radical group which challenged the more conservative Girondists for power. The "Girondists" were named after the Gironde region, a wine producing region. Wealthier bourgeois types (like wine merchants) were the sort of persons in the Girondist group. The Jacobins were adamant about establishing equality for all persons in France, whereas the Girondists at times seemed more concerned about protecting the interests of businessmen for the sake of a profitable business environment.
