"Third estate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the intendant. Count Frontenac, immediately after his arrival, in 1672, attempted to assemble the different orders of the colony, the clergy, the noblesse {164} or seigneurs, the judiciary, and the third estate, in imitation of the old institutions of France. The French king promptly rebuked the haughty governor for this attempt to establish a semblance ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... the States-General of France, the first thing that struck me was a great departure from the ancient course. I found the representation for the third estate composed of six hundred persons. They were equal in number to the representatives of both the other orders. If the orders were to act separately, the number would not, beyond the consideration of the expense, be of much moment. But when it became apparent ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... of 1788 the King of France found himself forced to summon the States-General. It was their first assembly since 1614. On the memorable Fourth of May, 1789, Robespierre appeared at Versailles as one of the representatives of the third estate of his native province of Artois. The excitement and enthusiasm of the elections to this renowned assembly, the immense demands and boundless expectations that they disclosed, would have warned ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) - Essay 1: Robespierre • John Morley
... world, and the religious world, as a dream which unavailingly beset his youth, when the Revolution came to offer him what destiny always offers to those who watch her progress, opportunity. He seized on it. He was named deputy of the third estate in the States General. Alone perhaps among all these men who opened at Versailles the first scene of this vast drama, he foresaw the termination; like the soul, whose seat in the human frame philosophers have not discovered, the thought of an entire people sometimes ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... increase their power, founded new towns and took them under their protection, granting certain privileges to the inhabitants, even that of holding land, and under the cover of these privileges, as under those of the communes, the tiers etat, or third estate, was gradually formed. Similar grants were made to some of the ancient cities, including Paris and Orleans, which seemed to have received all their franchises from the Middle Ages and from the kings, excepting, in Paris, the corporation of the ...
— Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day; Volume 1 • William Walton
... strength of talent which in a few seconds originates, and matures the conception of a plan, and with that largeness of view which foresees all consequences, and embraces every result at a glance—"have you thought that we must assemble the nobility, the clergy, and the third estate of the realm; that we shall have to depose the reigning sovereign, to disturb by so frightful a scandal the tomb of their dead father, to sacrifice the life, the honor of a woman, Anne of Austria, the life and peace of mind and heart of another woman, Maria Theresa; ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... "parliament" to nothing. In the year 1302 representatives of the cities had been admitted to the meeting of the French Parliament, but five centuries had to pass before this "Parliament" was strong enough to assert the rights of the middle class, the so-called Third Estate, and break the power of the king. Then they made up for lost time and during the French Revolution, abolished the king, the clergy and the nobles and made the representatives of the common people the ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... rationalists, political theorists. The "social compact." ... Popular sovereignty. 3. Religious dissenters. 4. Industrial elements. a. The Industrial Revolution. Resulting in exportation, markets, and laissez-faire doctrines. b. The bourgeoisie (employers) ... The Third Estate. c. The proletariat ... Unorganized labor elements. C. The Revolutionary Period, 1789-1800. 1. Triumph of bourgeoisie over feudal aristocracy in France, 1789-1791. Limited monarchy. Mirabeau. 2. Increasing influence ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... intrigues at Marly for the King's favor in behalf of the nobles, by royal seances and ruses which, instead of postponing, only hastened the evil hour, by the famous oath of the Tennis Court, and by the triumph of the third estate. And in this distracting clash of opposing political forces, amid this first crash and downfall of the ancient order of things, there passed, almost unnoticed, save by the weeping Queen and harassed King, who hung over his pillow, ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... hamstrung,—nor to clothe themselves like the nobles,—nor to clothe their wives like the wives of nobles,—nor to wear velvet or satin under a penalty of five thousand livres. And, preposterous as such claims may seem to us, they carried them into practice. A deputy of the Third Estate having been severely beaten by a noble, his demands for redress were treated as absurd. One of the orators of the lower order having spoken of the French as forming one great family in which the nobles ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... scheme destroyed itself. Instead of making the crown absolute, as was intended, it threw the balance into the hands of the Barons, who became so many petty Sovereigns, and a scourge to the King in after ages, 'till Henry the Seventh sapped their power, and raised the third estate, the Commons, which quickly ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton
... sentiment of the coffee-house or drawing-room into which he had just looked, did Barere enter into public life. The States-General had been summoned. Barere went down to his own province, was there elected one of the representatives of the Third Estate, and returned to ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... convoked on pressing occasions, for the purpose of obtaining subsidies, and which were composed of the three orders of the nation, the clergy, the nobility, and the third estate or commons, had no regular existence. Originated while the royal prerogative was in progress, they were at first controlled, and finally suppressed by it. The strongest and most determined opposition ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet
... of privilege would have served only to transfer the supremacy from the rich to the poor, if Pericles had not redressed the balance by restricting the right of citizenship to Athenians of pure descent. By this measure the class which formed what we should call the third estate was brought down to 14,000 citizens, and became about equal in numbers with the higher ranks. Pericles held that every Athenian who neglected to take his part in the public business inflicted an injury on the commonwealth. That none might be excluded by poverty, he caused the poor ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... classes present themselves to view,—the nobility and the clergy on the one hand, and the serfs on the other. This was the character of society in the ninth century. In the tenth century we see the beginnings of an intermediate class, the germ of "the third estate." This change appears in the cities, where the burghers begin to increase in intelligence, and to manifest a spirit of independence. From this time, for several centuries, their power and ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... of the State, headed by Mirabeau, steered with considerable success among waters as yet but partly roiled. At Versailles an outward and visible Liberalism triumphed. The Third Estate or Commons, consolidating its authority as a permanent assembly, took measures to end the national bankruptcy and tried to cope with the awful menace of starvation. It was a bourgeois body, thinly sprinkled with members of the nobility and clergy; its aim, to abolish the worst seigniorial ...
— Orphans of the Storm • Henry MacMahon |
