Question

The Three Estates social system in France ensured balanced representation of all people and treated each social group fairly. True or false ? Why?

Answer 1

The correct answer is FALSE.

The Estates of the Realm were the social classes in which the French feudal societies was divided: clergy (1st estate), nobels (2nd estate) and peasants and burgeosie (3rd estate). The 3rd estate comprised the majority of the country's population. There was almost no social mobility between estate. On top, the nation was ruled by a monarch with absolut powers.

The only representative body in France was the Estates General, an assembly that gathered representatives from the three estates, in case that the king required their counselling. In 1789, king Louis XVI called the last reunion because of the financial troubles that were affecting the government.

In the Estates General, each estate got one vote. The members of the third state considered this unfair as they represented the majority of the country's population and, under that system, they could always be outvoted by the much smaller 1st and 2nd estates. Due to this dispute, the 3rd state left the assembly and founded the National Assembly that would trigger the start of the French Revolution.