First Estate

In France of the ancien régime and the age of the French Revolution, the term First Estate (Fr. premier état) indicated the clergy; the Second Estate were the nobility, and the rest of the population constituted the Third Estate. From these terms came the name of the medieval French national assembly: the Estates-General (Fr. Etats-Généraux), the analogue to the British Parliament but with no constitutional tradition of vested powers: the French monarchy remained absolute.

References

• Steven Kreis lecture on "The Origins of the French Revolution"
• Notes on France and the Old Regime