French Revolution

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             The Third Estate essentially consisted of everyone who did not belong to one or other of the two privileged estates. It included the bourgeoisie, peasants and city workers. The bourgeoisie were by far the wealthiest in this group. They were merchants, manufacturers, lawyers, doctors and other upper class professionals. The other extreme, however, was the peasantry. They were forced to pay hefty taxes, tithes to the church and rents to their landlords for the land they lived on. The last group within the Third Estate was made up of urban workers. Most of these people lived in crowded towns, and insanitary tenements. They were forced to work long hours, and while prices roes by 65%, their wages only rose by 22%, thus their standard of living was in decline. .
             The middle class was often worried about social status, for they were not recognized because they were part of the third estate. Since the first two estates were exempted from taxes, this left the third estate to provide almost all of the country's income. They were forced to pay taxes on their income, land, property, crops, salt, tobacco, wine and cider. This were just too much for a hard working individual to pay and on top of all of this, they were forced into military service Members of the third estate were tired of being treated unfairly. Clearly this system was unjust and reforms were necessary. .
             The major causes of the Revolution were the differences these groups had. France was suffering from harsh economic problems at this time. There was no central treasury to collect taxes and so in many parts of France, the taxes were either not paid, or kept by the accountants. This resulted in a deficit. The government borrowed money to pay for the wars of Louis XIV. These costs greatly increased the national debt, which was, at the time, already too high. When King Louis XVI came into power, he realized that these problems were severe. He appointed Robert Turgot to help ease the financial crisis.