Question

Explain the society of estates(old regime) that existed in France before 1789

Answer 1

Dear Student


Prior to the Revolution of 1789, the society in France was feudal in nature and it was divided into three Estates:



1. Clergy - Group of persons invested with special functions in the church. It extracted its share of taxes called tithes from the peasants. Tithe was a tax levied by the church, comprising one-tenth of the agricultural produce.

2. Nobility – It include the group of people from administrative field. They enjoyed certain feudal privileges. These included feudal dues, to be extracted from the peasants and using them as their personal slaves.
The Clergy and Nobility group held almost 60% of the land and were exempted from paying taxes to the state.

3. The 3^rd estate comprised of rest of the population of which 90% were peasants , landless labour and servants. Only a small percentage of population consisted of Big and small businessmen, merchants, teachers, court officials, lawyers etc. Out of these even smaller number of them owned land. They had to pay all kinds of taxes levied by the state and Church. They lived in pathetic conditions and had work very hard to earn bare minimum livelihood.


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