The Basics of the Estates General and Napoleon's Relationship with the Church

The meeting of the Estates General of 1789 was the cause of a series of unfortunate events that eventually caused the French Revolution. The Estates General had three components. The First Estate was the clergy. There were 240,300 people that fell into the first estate. The Second Estate contained the nobility. They numbered around 400,000 people. The Third Estate is everybody else. There were 27 million of them. The Estates General is a voting system where the three estates met up and voted on things. Every estate had one vote, so the common people got voted two to one by estates one and two.

The church and the French government were not on good terms. Relations were strained to say the least. Many incidents ensued, such as the pope's ring being ripped off. The ring was a symbol of his power. Relations were like this for a while, and then Napoleon came a long and made an alliance with the church. But Napoleon wanted the church under his control. Some people were outraged by the terms and told the pope not to agree but the pope said this is the best we can get for the church.