Third state

Under the Old Mode, the population of the France was divided into three orders: the Clergy, the Nobility and the third state sometimes called “third”. It draws its name from the behavior of the General states, which, in the assembly, maintains division in three orders, inherited of the Moyen-âge.

Composition of the third state

By definition any nonecclesiastical commoner is crushing it majority of the population of the kingdom of France is member of the third state. He includes a completely heterogeneous population which goes from the large-middle-class man to the craftsman, of the workmen to the peasants, population largely under-represented at the “political” level (if as well is as this term can already be applied).

The voters of the third state are the household heads, “middle-class men” and landowners, certainly not-noble but having good.

With the the Middle Ages, the Serf S are not included in the electorate of the third state; they did not belong to any order. Idem for the marginal ones or domesticity until the Revolution. This exclusion (of the “proletarian ”, of the people stripped of goods) will continue well beyond the French revolution which is, primarily, a “middle-class” revolution. The Bourgeoisie will be able to exclude the proletariat from the political representation via the vote censitaire.

The case of the women is particular under the Ancien Mode. The widows and even the single people can be électrices and even eligible under certain conditions (of richness primarily). They are represented by a kind of substitute in the assemblies. And the women take an active part in the drafting of the complaints, as it was in particular the case in 1789.

Political role of the third state

The third state has a political existence within the provincial states and of the general states. The royal capacity is pressed a long time on the deputies of the third state to make bend the privileged orders. Moreover, many large ordinances of the 16th century are based directly on the complaints of the third state: 1561 with Orleans, 1566 with Mills, 1579 with Blois, for example. The third state was used a long time by the royalty like a rampart against “feudal anarchy”.

This legislative role of the third state is explained easily: it gathers indeed technicians of the Droit. In 1614, out of the 187 deputies of the third state, one counts three middle-class men, two merchants and a plowman, but thirty lawyers, fifty-eight lieutenant-generals and fifty six officers of bailliages. In 1789, one counts, on the 578 deputies of the third state, nearly 200 lawyers.

If the general states are not joined together between 1614 and 1789, the political role of the third state is maintained through the particular provincial states and states. Moreover, the members of the third state take an active part in the governments since the reign of Louis XIV which never makes to call, in this field, with the nobility.

The day before the Revolution, the doubling of the third state compared to the General states of 1614, i.e. its deputies will be of number equal to those of the two other joined together orders, will have unsuspected consequences once the nobility and the clergy will have joined the third state to train the new “constituent Assembly”.

The third state and the French revolution

With the French revolution and the abolition of the Old Mode, the direction even of the term “third state” changes. The Revolution founds, in fact, the Old Mode, and it expresses by negative the last experiment. The National Assembly votes as it “entirely destroys the feudal mode” the August 11th 1789 after debates begun in the night from the August 4th. It is the legal end of the existence of the third state, but this term, that much confuses consequently with a vague synonym of “people”, with an innermost depth of pessimism is far from disappearing from the vocabulary. The Abbé Sieyès is avant-gardist in this field while launching as of January 1789 a Libelle famous:
“What the third state? - All. What was it until now in the political order? - Nothing. What does he ask? - To become something there…”
which echoes the humorous maxim not less famous: Is
“What what the third state? Nothing. What does he want? All. ”
At the 19th century, Proudhon begins again on the same register:
“What the third state? Nothing. What does it have to be? All.”

Internal bonds

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