Tiers État, Le (or Le Tiers). The third of the three orders or estates that the society of the ancien régime was divided into, the first two being the clergy and the nobility. It therefore included all those excluded from the other orders, and had no real homogeneity, except that all could engage in trade without penalty and, as commoners, were theoretically subject to the taille [see Taxation]. Consequently, the ‘Third Estate’ was of the most varied social composition: its members ranged from the wealthiest financial or judicial office-holder through all the fine gradations of urban ranks amongst tradesmen to the lowliest peasant. There was, in fact, an accepted (but sometimes contested) hierarchy reaffirmed by places in urban processions and forms of address. At the top were those who could ‘live nobly’ from their investments in land and office, followed by those living from intellectual labour, like lawyers and judicial office-holders, then merchants, master craftsmen, and tradesmen, down to those whose only means of income was unskilled manual labour.
In spite of the apparently strict hierarchy, society was complex, and in addition to regional variations in status there were the criteria of wealth and life-style, such that a non-noble tax-farmer might rank higher in the eyes of his contemporaries than many a provincial noble, while a wealthy merchant might receive more esteem than many a master craftsman. The order was riven with internal rivalries and suffered politically from the fact that its wealthiest members were generally attempting to flee it by purchasing titles of nobility. The upper echelons of the bourgeoisie acquired many privileges that gave them dignity, and already lived in a manner virtually indistinguishable from the nobles.
‘Tiers État’ was both the name for a collection of social groups and a term for its representation. The political representation of the Third Estate was limited to the infrequent meetings of the États Généraux, to the periodic assemblies of provincial estates, and to membership of some town councils. Peasants never gained representation in person as members of the Tiers, although in 1789 they were allowed to vote in indirect elections and present cahiers de doléances along with the other groups. The elections to the Tiers at the États Généraux of 1789 resulted in the election of 448 judicial office-holders, lawyers, and notaries, and as few as 85 manufacturers, traders, and bankers from a total of 648. The representatives of the Tiers were thus overwhelmingly bourgeois.
The Tiers was the subject of a famous 1789 pamphlet by Siéyès, which contains the questions and answers: ‘Qu'est-ce que le Tiers État? Tout. Qu'a-t-il été jusqu'à présent dans l'ordre politique? Rien.’
[Peter Campbell]
