Louis XVI was the king of France at a time when many factions were jockeying for power, ôLouis inherited both absolutism and challenges to itö (French, p. 636). The frustrations and antagonisms between the first two and the Third estate were coming to a head and Louis failed to maintain the centralization of power. He represented everything the Estates opposed: centralized government, wealth and indifference. The country was in horrible financial shape and France was deeply in debt. The financial crisis began an inflationary spiral that hurt the peasantry. Landlords began raising the rents of the peasantry at the same time they saw the purchasing power of their money decrease. Most of a typical familyÆs income could go into buying bread alone. Bankrupt, Louis was forced to call a meeting of the Estates-General in Versailles on May 5, 1789. This began the French revolution, ôThe fiscal crisis precipitated the Revolutionö (French, p. 636).
The Estates-General was the national representative body in France before 1789. Its basic function was to give consent to royal taxation. Its members were divided into three classes, or estates: the clergy, the nobility (both small minorities), and the third estate, which represented the great majority of the people. The Estates-General, first convened by King Philip IV in 1302, was most powerful in the 14th and early 15th centuries. After 1614 the body did not meet until 1789, when King Louis XVI summoned the Estates-General to deal with the financial crisis in France. In June, of that year, the third estate, joined by some members of the clergy and the nobility, declared itself a National Assembly in defiance of the king:
Shortly after the Estates General opened at Versailles in May 1789, the Third Estate, angered by the kingÆs attitude, took the revolutionary step of leaving the body and declaring itself the National Assembly (French, p. 638).
This newly formed body th...