The Estates General meeting – homework

4. The members of the Third Estate felt under-represented because

they did not hold the political or social sway that the other two states
had. The First Estate was the clergy and the Second Estate was the
nobility, this meant that they had a great deal of political, social and
monetary sway which would have given them more power than the Third
Estate.

5. The king hoped the estates general would approve new taxes. The
nobles and the clergy hoped they would control the affairs to continue
their privileged lifestyles. The Middles classes hoped for an English
style democracy. The peasants hoped for solutions to their problems.

6. The mistakes that Louis did are the following:

1) He separated the members into three orders. The first state was
the clergy, the smallest group, but very influential. The Second Estate
was the Nobility, the rich people that did not pay taxes. The Third
State was the peasants, the farmers, and the poor people. And this led
to the third estate disagreed on the procedures and drawn up a lists of
complaints.

2) He was unprepared, he did not have any proposals to vote on and lost
control of the meeting, this left the clergy and nobles left to think of
their own ideas.

7. According to this article the French villages were full of weak men
and women humiliated by poverty with lots of children wearing rags and
most villages were like this.
8. All the peasants in our neighborhood - Brittany - are making ready to
refuse the church tax-gatherers and state that nothing will be taken
without bloodshed.

9. The king might want to hear what the peasants had to say and they
draw up a lists of complaints (cahier de doleances).