From Estates-General to National Assembly

To gain support for his proposed reforms, Louis XVI in 1788 summoned an assembly of the Estates General. Such assemblies had existed historically in many parts of Europe, including France. Representatives of each of the three orders (nobles, clergy and commoners) would gather to advise the King on important matters, such as taxation or declarations of war. Under absolutism, the Kings of France had done away with the Estates General in 1614, so in 1788, no one was precisely sure how what precisely it should do.

The king and his ministers hoped it would approve the proposed reforms and taxes; patriots thought it should follow the model of the English parliament write a Constitution for France that would definitively limit the King's power and ensure a more important role for the Third Estate (that is the commoners) in the government of France. To do so, of course, would end absolutism and make France a constitutional monarchy.