<P> The Estates - General was organised into three estates: the clergy, the nobility, and the rest of France . It had last met in 1614 . Elections were held in the spring of 1789; suffrage requirements for the Third Estate were for French - born or naturalised males, aged 25 years or more, who resided where the vote was to take place and who paid taxes . Strong turnout produced 1,201 delegates, including 303 clergy, 291 nobles and 610 members of the Third Estate . The First Estate represented 100,000 Catholic clergy; the Church owned about 10% of the land and collected its own taxes (the tithe) on peasants . The lands were controlled by bishops and abbots of monasteries, but two - thirds of the 303 delegates from the First Estate were ordinary parish priests; only 51 were bishops . The Second Estate represented the nobility, about 400,000 men and women who owned about 25% of the land and collected seigneurial dues and rents from their peasant tenants . About a third of these deputies were nobles, mostly with minor holdings . The Third Estate representation was doubled to 610 men, representing 95% of the population . Half were well educated lawyers or local officials . Nearly a third were in trades or industry; 51 were wealthy land owners . </P> <P> To assist delegates, "Books of grievances" (cahiers de doléances) were compiled to list problems . The books articulated ideas which would have seemed radical only months before; however, most supported the monarchical system in general . Many assumed the Estates - General would approve future taxes, and Enlightenment ideals were relatively rare . </P> <P> Pamphlets by liberal nobles and clergy became widespread after the lifting of press censorship . The Abbé Sieyès, a theorist and Catholic clergyman, argued the paramount importance of the Third Estate in the pamphlet Qu'est - ce que le tiers état? (What is the Third Estate?) published in January, 1789 . He asserted: "What is the Third Estate? Everything . What has it been until now in the political order? Nothing . What does it want to be? Something ." </P> <P> The Estates - General convened in the Grands Salles des Menus - Plaisirs in Versailles on 5 May 1789 and opened with a three - hour speech by Necker . The Third Estate demanded that the credentials of deputies should be verified by all deputies, rather than each estate verifying the credentials of its own members, but negotiations with the other estates failed to achieve this . The commoners appealed to the clergy, who asked for more time . Necker then stated that each estate should verify its own members' credentials and that the king should act as arbitrator . </P>

Who rose to power during the french revolution and declared the french empire