Differences Of The Three Estates In France

In France there were different levels that people were held. God was first, next is the king, the king is just below God due to Divine Right. Under the king, there are three estates. What were the Three Estates? The Three Estates were the three social classes of France during the old regime. The Three Estates consisted of three social classes, which were the First, Second, and Third Estates. The First Estate was made up of the clergy, the Second Estate was made up of nobles, and the Third Estate was the rest of the population in France. One of the Estates was also treated unfairly. These groups had many different views. With being treated unfairly and having different views this brought conflict between the Three Estates. The First Estate consisted of the clergy, which were priests, monks, and nuns. They only made up for two point two percent of the population. These were the people who didn’t have to pay taxes. The Third Estate not like the Enlightenment ideas. They didn’t like the …show more content…
Peasants paid half their income to the king in the form of taxes. These taxes helped pay for the kings ventures. They were the one who had to pay for everything from war to the debt that France had. France had many debts. One was because of war and another one was because France would borrow money from other places to pay off the debts they had. Due to all of the taxes that the Third Estate had to pay, they were the poorest of the estates. Being poor meant that people had no money for food. There was also a great food shortage at the time. Some of the people of the Third estate owned their own land but it still wasn’t enough. The higher estates used the Third estate to do whatever they pleased. The economic problems was the main reason for the start of the French Revolution. Another reason was because of the social inequality at the time, the Third estate didn’t want to take the abuse anymore so they