This essay examines the Third Estate as the central social force behind the French Revolution. It outlines the three-tier structure of French society under the Old Regime, detailing how the First Estate (clergy) and Second Estate (nobility) monopolized privilege while the Third Estate — comprising peasants, urban workers, and the bourgeoisie — bore the burden of taxation and social exclusion. The paper traces the specific grievances of each subgroup within the Third Estate, from rural peasant obligations to the frustrated ambitions of the educated middle class. It then follows how those grievances escalated through the Estates-General of 1789, the Tennis Court Oath, and ultimately the fall of the Bastille, marking the collapse of royal authority in France.
The underlying cause of the French Revolution was the state of French society. Society was highly stratified and unequal, with social, political, economic, and legal privileges distributed on the basis of hereditary rank. There were three main social orders: the First, Second, and Third Estates. The First Estate consisted of the clergy, who owned a tenth of the total land of France and were exempt from the taille, or chief tax (Duiker and Spielvogel 450). The Second Estate comprised the nobility, who owned between 25% and 30% of the land and held most of the leading positions in the military, government, law courts, and higher church offices (Roberts 45). The nobles were also exempt from the taille and sought to expand their power alongside the monarchy.
The Third Estate comprised the commoners, who overwhelmingly made up the majority of the population — between 75% and 80% (Duiker and Spielvogel 450). This estate was subdivided according to level of education, wealth, and occupation. Members of the Third Estate owned 35% to 40% of the land, with landholdings varying widely and many holding no formal title to the lands they worked. Although sixteenth- and seventeenth-century France had moved away from serfdom, the Third Estate still carried obligations to local property owners (Duiker and Spielvogel 450). It is this Third Estate that is the focus of this essay, which explores its composition, its grievances, and its contribution to the French Revolution.
The first group within the Third Estate was made up of peasants, who comprised approximately 75% of the population. Their grievances centered on the obligations imposed on them by property owners, who demanded aristocratic privileges such as fees for the use of village facilities including the winepress, flour mill, and community oven (Duiker and Spielvogel 450).
The second group consisted of skilled craftsmen, wage earners, and shopkeepers. By the late eighteenth century, consumer prices had risen higher and faster than wages, causing a serious decline in the purchasing power of urban workers. Locked in a daily struggle to survive, this segment of the Third Estate played a central role in the French Revolution, particularly in the city of Paris (Duiker and Spielvogel 450).
The third group comprised the middle-class bourgeoisie, who made up roughly 8% of the population and owned 20–25% of the land. This group included bankers, industrialists, and merchants who controlled resources in manufacturing, trade, and finance (Roberts 45), and who had benefited considerably from economic prosperity after 1730. It also included educated professionals such as lawyers, doctors, public officers, and writers.
Different segments of the Third Estate harbored distinct grievances, all rooted in their exclusion from the privileges monopolized by the noble community. Middle-class industrialists, merchants, lawyers, bankers, and doctors were experiencing growing economic prosperity yet were still denied the privileges enjoyed by the aristocracy (Roberts 46). The monarchical system restricted privilege and the old social order so rigidly that even prosperous industrialists and merchants could not ascend the social ladder (Spielvogel 402).
The wealthy middle class that had emerged in the business sector moved to oppose the social order and its elites. These prosperous members of the Third Estate took increasingly drastic positions against the monarchical regime, in part because the government was extravagant in its spending on royal affairs and costly wars (Spielvogel 402). By 1788, the government was so short of funds that it was forced to resort to borrowing (Roberts 46). The middle-class Third Estate found it unconscionable to lend money to a government whose interest payments on existing debts already exceeded its expenditures. With creditors increasingly unwilling to extend further loans, France stood on the verge of complete financial collapse (Spielvogel 402).
"Poor harvests, unemployment, and deepening social crisis"
"Third Estate demands reform at parliament opening"
"Lawyers lead oath and early revolutionary steps"
"Popular revolt topples royal authority in Paris"
You’re 43% through this paper. Sign up to read the remaining 4 sections.
Sign Up Now — Instant Access Already a member? Log inAlways verify citation format against your institution’s current style guide requirements.