A new social group called the middle class came up in the eighteenth century , earned wealth through overseas trade and manufacturing of goods such as woollen and silk textiles. In addition to merchants and manufacturers, the Third Estate also included well educated professions such as lawyers and administrative officials. They were inspired by the words of philosophers like John Locke and Jean Jacques Rousseau who wanted to create a society based on freedom and equal laws and opportunities for all. In his book, Two Treatises of Government, Locke wrote against the belief that the monarch had absolute rights. Rousseau carried the same idea forward. He proposed that government should be based on a social contract between the people and their representatives. In the book, The Spirit of the Laws, Montesquieu, a philosopher, proposed that power should be divided between the legislature, the executive and the judiciary. This model of government was followed in the USA, after the thirteen colonies declared their independence from Britain. The American constitution and its guarantee of individual rights was an important example for third estate in France.
On 5 May, 1789 CE, Louis XVI called a meeting of the Estates General to pass proposals for new taxes. The First and Second Estates sent 300 representatives each, who were seated in rows facing each other on two sides. But, the 600 members of the Third Estate had to stand at the back. The Third Estate was represented by its more prosperous and educated members only. Peasants, artisans and women were not allowed to enter the assembly. However, their problems and demands were written down in some 40,000 letters which the representatives had brought with them. Earlier, each estate had one vote in the voting. Louis XVI also wanted to continue the same practice. But the members of the Third Estate demanded that voting be done by the assembly as a whole, where each member would have one vote.This