Question

3. Explain in detail the 3 Estates of Old Regime of France that existed prior to 1789

Answer 1

Explanation:

France under the Ancien Régime (before the French Revolution) divided society into three estates: the First Estate (clergy); the Second Estate (nobility); and the Third Estate (commoners). The king was considered part of no estate.

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Answer 2

Answer:

The best-known system is the three-estate system of the French Ancien Régime used until the French Revolution (1789–1799). This system was made up of clergy (the First Estate), nobility (the Second Estate), and commoners (the Third Estate).

The First Estate comprised the entire clergy, traditionally divided into “higher” and “lower” clergy. Although there was no formal demarcation between the two categories, the upper clergy were effectively clerical nobility from the families of the Second Estate. In the time of Louis XVI, every bishop in France was a nobleman, a situation that had not existed before the 18th century. At the other extreme, the “lower clergy” (about equally divided between parish priests and monks and nuns) constituted about 90 percent of the First Estate, which in 1789 numbered around 130,000 (about 0.5% of the population).

The Second Estate was the French nobility and (technically, although not in common use) royalty, other than the monarch himself, who stood outside of the system of estates. It is traditionally divided into “nobility of the sword” and “nobility of the robe,” the magisterial class that administered royal justice and civil government. The Second Estate constituted approximately 1.5% of France’s population and were exempt from the corvée royale (forced labor on the roads) and from most other forms of taxation such as the gabelle (salt tax) and most important, the taille (the oldest form of direct taxation). This exemption from paying taxes led to their reluctance to reform.

The Third Estate comprised all who were not members of the above and can be divided into two groups, urban and rural, together making up 98% of France’s population. The urban included the bourgeoisie and wage-laborers. The rural included peasants who owned their own land (and could be prosperous) and peasants who worked on nobles’ or wealthier peasants’ land. The peasants paid disproportionately high taxes compared to the other Estates and simultaneously had very limited rights. In addition, the First and Second Estates relied on the labor of the Third, which made the latter’s unequal status all the more unjust.