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Between 1780 and 1790, the 

famous country of France was a 

rich place for the aristocrats, an 

easy place to live for the clergy -- 

or people who were a part of the 

Roman Catholic Church -- and a 

poor country for the bourgeois, or 

members of the middle-class and 

commoners. While King Louis XVI 

and his queen, Marie Antoinette, 

lived in the large palace of 

Versailles with many nobles living 

with them, entertaining and 

socializing with them, the poor 

lived without money, food, or hope 

for a better life.  

The poor people, also known as the Third 

Estate, had to pay many taxes to King Louis 

XVI, but the Second Estate, or the clergy, 

didn’t pay taxes, nor did the nobles, which 

were apart of the First Estate. The First and 

Second Estates thought that since they did the 

country a “public service” by owning and 

keeping up the land and providing religion and 

social services to the people, they were 

exempt from the taxes, or didn’t have to pay 

them.

The people became very angry, and when they 

heard of a land called America where there 

was no King and Queen, no nobility, no big 

taxes, and equality for all people -- or where 

everyone was considered the same as the 

other -- they decided that they wanted to be 

like America, and cried out for a revolution, or 

uprising against King Louis XVI. “Liberty! 

Equality! Fraternity,” or brotherhood, they 

cried out, for this was what they wanted the 

new, republic of France to be newly built on.

France might have had rich palaces, clothes, 

jewels, and titles for its nobles, but it also had 

no money. To avenge itself on its old enemy, 

Britain, France aided the Americans in their 

revolution against Britain, wanting to make 

America its own, free country. This cost a lot of 

money, and when they revolution in America 

ended, France was very poor indeed. 

To try and find a way to solve his country’s 

financial crisis, or vast money problems, King 

Louis XVI called together of a groups of 

representatives from the three Estates. In the 

meetings of the Estates General, there was a 

policy of “vote by order,” meaning that the 

Third Estate, since it was the largest estate, 

would vote first. Before the meeting started, 

the Third Estate, made up of representatives 

of the poor, asked the king for a double 

representation, or twice as many 

representatives in their ranks.

The King at first complied, but later locked the 

representatives of the Third Estate out, and 

proceeded on with the meeting with just the 

First and Second Estates. The King tried, in the 

closed meeting, to make the two estates pay 

taxes like the Third Estate did, and this made 

them very angry. Meanwhile, the Third Estate 

was having a meeting of their own.

In the meeting of the Third Estate, they decided 

that France needed a constitution, like the one the 

new country of America had, that protected the 

rights of the people and established a fairer 

government than the one they currently had. The 

representative at the meeting decided to call their 

assembly the National Assembly, since they wanted 

to be the ones to establish a new government for 

France. All the members of the new National 

Assembly took the Tennis Court Oath, or a pledge, 

saying that they would continue to meet in the 

assembly until the new constitution was produced.

Constitution

When King Louis XVI heard about the National 

Assembly, he was displeased yet he 

acknowledged its existence and the authority 

the representatives in it possessed. Some of 

these representatives were powerful individuals 

like the lawyer Maximilien Robespierre,   the 

journalist and orator Mirabeau, and Emmanuel 

Joseph Sieyès the clergyman who formed 

influential ideas on politics.

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