The French Bourgeoisie – The Third Estate

Social and economic difference within the Third Estate in 18th century France

The Third Estate in revolutionary France was everyone who wasn’t noble by birth or favour, or a member of the clergy. Most people think of workers and peasants when they think of “The People” of the French Revolution but within this Third Estate was an entire middle class that ranged from low-wage workers to small artisans and shop-keepers to wealthy businessmen – lawyers, tax collectors, physicians, merchants – who were often more wealthy than many of the nobles but were set apart simply by their requirement to pay taxes.

In the eighteenth century France, under the absolute monarchy, was divided into three sections of society, called ‘Estates’. The First Estate was all members of the clergy. Although this ranged from high ranking bishops down to members of monastic orders taking vows of poverty; it was their connection to God and not wealth that gave them their privileges. The Second Estate was anyone who was a member of the aristocracy. In the main, this meant by birth and inheritance although there were some circumstances in which non-noble bourgeois citizens could marry or buy into the Second Estate. The Third Estate was quite literally everybody else. This meant that the poorest rural peasants or urban outcasts of society had the same social standing, and the same taxation rules as the richest merchants who were, in many cases earning more than some nobles. In terms of political voice, they were also the same – namely they had none.

The haute-bourgeoisie – those rich, middle class men who dressed as nobility, mingled in noble circles, and owned enough land to live off the rents and not work, much like the nobility, were naturally resentful that they paid tax, where the nobility did not. The lower classes and peasants were resentful that they paid as much, if not more, tax as the bourgeoisie (many of whom managed to claim exemptions), not to mention rents to their landowners – mostly those members of society that had to pay no tax at all. On top of this, both groups were resentful that neither of them could do anything about it since votes in parliament were by Estate, not by head. So although the Third Estate, in actual number of individuals, was overrepresented, their one collective vote could never surpass the sum of the votes of the First and Second Estate who, naturally, were quite happy with things the way they were. The bourgeoisie, were particularly frustrated at their lack of inclusion in parliament when, by their own reckoning, their professions and business proved they had both the intellect and the finances to be capable.

Even within the lower bourgeoisie, there was a huge diversity in terms of class, wealth and trade. A merchant could be categorised as wholesale or retail. Retail merchants were often artisans, or craftsmen, who had shops and sold the craft of their labour directly to the public. However, although they originally had their own guilds and were considered merchants, they were usually poverty stricken and lived frugally in crowded, uncomfortable quarters – often with the whole family in one room, the journeymen whom they were responsible for in another (usually the attic) and then a workshop and commercial shop on the ground floor. Some shops didn’t even have glass panes in the windows. They had more space overall than the underbelly of the poor who were living several families to a single rented, squalid room, but the living conditions weren’t a whole lot better. They couldn’t afford meat so ate mostly bread and soup, drank water, and had occasional trips to the inn for a glass of wine. Conditions varied from artisan to artisan. The worst-off were the cloth and textile artisans. Food traders lived more comfortably, especially innkeepers, confectioners and pastry-cooks (although bakers were on a par with butchers at the lower end of the scale). In the middle range, you would find artisans of the building industry (although even here there was variance. For example, some masons and carpenters had a little capital, where the iron-mongers and tool manufacturers did not)

In Lyon, where the second book in The Power of the Wouivre series is set, the silk industry highlighted the influence of commercial capitalism through the difference between wholesale merchant and skilled artisan, insofar as both originally belonged to guilds (Master Weavers’ Guild and Master Merchants’ Guild) but the weavers ultimately became demoted to wage-earning proletariat becoming more and more dependant on the international wholesale merchants that requested the work. This pushed the weavers further into poverty and the merchants higher up the financial ladder.

In the business world, the financier was king. This was the commercial career that was closest to nobility in terms of wealth and lifestyle for the bourgeoisie. Industrialists were next on the Third Estate social ladder. These were the haute-bourgeoisie, or upper-middle class. Whilst merchants in wholesale trade were technically low to middle class bourgeoisie, many rose to count themselves among the haute-bourgeoisie. Some top-end merchants were even eventually able to retire and live like nobility, owning properties with several rooms, and redecorating frequently, or building/ purchasing new property either to live in or to rent out. Merchants were sub-divided by their field of work. Those of the book industry such as printers or dealers, and cloth, textile and haberdashery merchants were financially well-off. Apothecaries, goldsmiths were better off than other retail merchants. Grocers, second-hand clothing traders, general retailers and other small scale merchants lived considerably less comfortably, though still better than the artisans. In terms of living conditions, retailers and small scale tradesmen had more modest, rented accommodation than their wholesale counterparts, with no separate living room, and eating meals in the kitchen, instead of a designated dining room. For those not living off rents, the working day was often 14-16 hours long.

So, on the one side of the bourgeoisie, there were the merchants, or businessmen. On the other, there were the professionals. Again this was wide ranging from office clerks to doctors, and high ranking lawyers and magistrates. Unlike today, intellectuals and writers were considered the upper echelon of the professional classes, but it is worth noting that this was a social prestige not a matter of wealth. At the time of the revolution, these were the men who wrote and distributed revolutionary pamphlets and campaigned for parliamentary reforms. The legal profession, too, was not always as well paid as the financiers and industrialists, but was the aspiration of many a merchant, because becoming a lawyer was not necessarily aspired to for wealth but for social mobility. We could make a similar observation if we consider the clergy, who as already noted were offered the privilege of the First Estate, but who were clearly divided into higher clergy, such as bishops, and lower clergy like the parish priests and vicars. To be a bishop offered a similar prestige to being noble but the lower clergy, in terms of society, would have been on a similar level to the lower bourgeoisie. This would explain why many of the lower clergy joined the revolutionaries of the Third Estate.

Thus we can see that the social hierarchy of the Third Estate was varied in terms of both prestige and wealth. For the upper end, social mobility towards the ranks and privileges of the aristocracy was the goal, fuelled by resentment at their hard-earned wealth not being enough to put them on a par and give them equal rights. At the other end, were those just trying to stay alive in a world that favoured money and status, where hard work was unrewarded and heavily taxed, and the price of bread had become extortionate through recent poor harvests. It is this melting pot of “players” that allowed the French Revolution to unfold as fast as it did within the context of the nationwide issues that occurred in France at the time, but equally caused it to break down as dramatically as it did.