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5 May 1789Reputable source · 2 sourcesWell documented

The Estates-General Opens at Versailles

Clergy, nobility, and commons meet for the first time in 175 years, and the Third Estate refuses to be outvoted

On the timeline · around 5 May 1789 · A Constitutional MonarchyThe Old Regime in CrisisA Constitutional MonarchyThe Estates-General Opens at Versailles17891790

Quick facts

Location
Versailles
Date
5 May 1789
Third Estate deputies
578, after Necker doubled its representation
Key pamphlet
"What is the Third Estate?" by Abbe Sieyes

What happened

The Estates-General assembled at Versailles on 5 May 1789, bringing together deputies of the clergy, the nobility, and the Third Estate, the commons who made up the overwhelming majority of France's roughly 27 million people. Elections that spring had also produced cahiers de doleances, lists of grievances from every constituency. Necker had secured a doubling of the Third Estate's deputies to 578, but the older rule that each estate cast one collective vote, letting the two privileged orders always outvote the third, remained unresolved. Most of the Third Estate's elected deputies were educated, well-off members of the legal profession rather than ordinary commoners, since delegates had to cover their own expenses at Versailles.

Why it matters

Doubling the Third Estate's numbers meant nothing if voting stayed by order rather than by head, and the abbe Sieyes's pamphlet asking "What is the Third Estate?" argued that the estate that paid nearly all the taxes and did nearly all the work was, in effect, the nation itself. That argument, not the king's opening speech, set the terms for the standoff that followed within weeks.

How we know

World History Encyclopedia's account of the Estates-General draws on the election records, the cahiers de doleances, and Sieyes's published pamphlet from the spring of 1789.

Sources

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Part of a timelineThe French Revolution28 events · How a bankrupt monarchy's tax crisis became a decade of upheaval that ended with a general seizing powerView all →
The Estates-General Opens at Versailles · The French Revolution · SourcedStory