As most people with some familiarity with European history know, the French Revolution was, in part, caused by unequal representation in taxation. France was divided up into three estates: the aristocracy, the clergy and the Third Estate.
Now, what is the Third Estate? "Everyone Else Who Isn't Noble or In the Church" or, according to Abbé Sieyes, it's everything! It's the nation!
Well, "the nation" excluding women, servants, vagrants, homeless people, people in the aristocracy and people in the church. Other than that it's everyone.
At any rate, the Third Estate was paying a lot of taxes to the state when the other two estates were not. However, the king could not raise taxes on any of the estates without the consent of the estates themselves. So, the question then arises, why was the Third Estate alone paying taxes?
Because during the Hundred Years War, the Third Estate consented to their current taxes (which mind you, were paying for a LARGE WAR) indefinitely.
Yeah.
Good job Third Estate, good job.
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