The Estates-General Meeting Place
On 5 May 1789, amidst general festivities, the Estates-General convened in an elaborate but temporary lle des États set up in one of the courtyards of the official Hôtel des Menus Plaisirs in the town of Versailles near the royal château. Many in the Third Estate viewed the double representation as a revolution already peacefully accomplished. However, with the étiquette of 1614 strictly enforced, the clergy and nobility ranged in tiered seating in their full regalia and the physical locations of the deputies from the Third Estate at the far end, as dictated by the protocol. When Louis XVI and Charles Louis François de Paule de Barentin, the Keeper of the Seals of France, addressed the deputies on 6 May, the Third Estate discovered that the royal decree granting double representation also upheld the traditional voting "by orders", i.e., that the collective vote of each estate would be weighed equally.
The apparent intent of the king and of Barentin was for everyone to get directly to the matter of taxes. The larger representation of the Third Estate would remain merely a symbol, while giving them no extra power. Director-General of Finance Jacques Necker had more sympathy for the Third Estate, but on this occasion, he spoke only about the fiscal situation, leaving it to Barentin to speak on how the Estates-General was to operate.
Trying to avoid the issue of representation and to focus solely on taxes, the king and his ministers had gravely misjudged the situation. The Third Estate wanted the estates to meet as one body and vote per deputy ("voting by heads" rather than "by orders"). The other two estates, while having their own grievances against royal absolutism, believed – correctly, as history was to prove – that they stood to lose more power to the Third Estate than they stood to gain from the king. Necker sympathized with the Third Estate in this matter, but the astute financier lacked equal astuteness as a politician. He decided to let the impasse play out to the point of stalemate before he would enter the fray. As a result, by the time the king yielded to the demand of the Third Estate, it seemed to all as a concession wrung from the monarchy, rather than a magnanimous gift that would have convinced the populace of the king's good will.
Read more about this topic: Estates-General Of 1789
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