France in 1789: A Kingdom of Three Estates

On the eve of revolution, France was the most populous kingdom in western Europe, with about 28 million people, and its society was divided by law into three orders called estates. The First Estate was the clergy, the Second Estate was the nobility, and the Third Estate was everyone else, from wealthy bankers and lawyers to urban workers and the vast peasant majority. Each estate had different legal rights, so a person's status depended on birth and order rather than on wealth or talent alone.

This structure, later called the Old Regime, gave the two small privileged orders honours, posts and tax advantages out of all proportion to their numbers. Yet the Third Estate was far from uniform: a rich merchant and a landless laborer shared a legal label but little else. Understanding these divisions explains why demands for 'equality before the law' became so explosive in 1789.