The Estates-General Opens at Versailles

The Estates-General opened at Versailles on 5 May 1789 amid elaborate ceremony that itself underlined inequality. Deputies of each order wore prescribed costumes: clergy in their robes, nobles in silk and plumed hats, and the Third Estate in plain black. The opening speeches by the king, his keeper of the seals and Necker focused on finances and said nothing decisive about the crucial question of voting by order or by head.

The Third Estate refused to verify its deputies' credentials separately, because doing so would accept that the orders were distinct bodies. For about six weeks the assembly was deadlocked. During this time the Third Estate's deputies, many of them lawyers, gained experience, public attention and confidence. The stalemate showed that the crown had called the assembly without a plan for managing it, turning a financial meeting into a constitutional confrontation.