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Estates General

   Also found in: Dictionary/thesaurus, Wikipedia, Hutchinson 0.01 sec.

Estates General

 or States General French États-Généraux.

In pre-Revolutionary France, the representative assembly of the three “estates” or orders of the realm: the clergy and the nobility (both privileged minorities) as well as the Third Estate, which represented the majority of the people. Usually summoned by monarchs in times of crisis, the Estates General met at irregular intervals from the 14th century on; it was of limited effectiveness because the monarchy usually dealt with local Estates instead. The last meeting of the Estates General was at the start of the French Revolution in 1789, when the deputies of the Third Estate led in founding the National Assembly.



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If ever there is such a chance it is now (with] the holding of the Estates General .
Scholars have wished to use these cahiers as a means to plumb public opinion in the months immediately preceding the convocation of the Estates General.
Financing this overwhelming effort created other problems because the monarch elected to order the necessary taxes without consulting intermediate constituted bodies such as the Estates General.
 
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