The Estates-General and the Birth of the National Assembly

Louis XVI formally convened the Estates-General in 1788, a representative institution that had not met in a hundred and seventy-five years. It was meant to represent the three estates, each sending its own delegation, and a heated controversy arose over whether to double the number of third-estate representatives; the Royal Council granted the doubling but left unresolved the crucial question of how voting would work, with voting by estate favoring the privileged orders and voting by head favoring the third estate. In January 1789 the Abbé Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès published his hugely influential pamphlet "What Is the Third Estate?", arguing that the third estate constituted the true French nation, with its celebrated formula: "What is the third estate? Everything. What has it been until now in the political order? Nothing. What does it want? To become something."