The first phase of the French Revolution
             The Estates General was split up into three estates or social classes. This system divided 25 million people into these estates very disproportionately. The first estate contained only one hundred thousand people, which was only a fraction of a percentage of the population. These people were referred to as the “clergy”. These people were part of the church. They weren’t even taxed really. They only had to give some sort of a gift to the government every five years, and they owned ten percent of the land in France. The second estate was composed of the “nobles”. The second estate composed of only four hundred thousand people, which was 1.6 percent of the population. These noblemen and noblewomen were the descendants of those who supposedly fought for France during the middle ages and these people owned about ¼ of the land. They too were hardly taxed at all. Then there was the third estate. They were essentially the leftovers. They were the people who weren’t nobility or part of the church. They ranged from the upper-middle class, the bourgeoisie, to peasants. They were the remaining 24.5 million Frenchmen. They were taxed the most, infact, they were Louis’s financiers. Almost all of the tax money came from the third estate, which is also, overall, the poorest estate. The third estate had trouble getting laws passed because when something was put to a vote, each estate only got one vote. This left the first two estates in clear power, which is why the third estate is taxed the most. This system was terrible and eventually failed due to the shortage of tax income for Louis and the growing anger from the third estate for more equality.
             - Louis XVI – He was the creator of the Estates General. This was his system of government that he set up to keep him in power. To do this he had to stay in favor, and to stay in favor he to ...