# Estates-General opens (1789)

URL: https://history-france.com/timeline/1789-estates-general-opens
Location: Versailles

Representatives of clergy, nobility and Third Estate assembled amid the state’s financial crisis. Within the broader French Revolution period, The Revolution dismantled legal privilege and absolute monarchy, declared new rights and created a republic. War, popular mobilization, civil conflict and political terror repeatedly transformed the revolutionary state. At this point in the timeline, the relevant governing authority is Louis XVI (King of France). Estates-General opens is a useful marker in the longer transformation of political authority, society and culture in France. The event is positioned here so visitors can read it alongside changes in government, warfare, society, religion, culture and France’s wider international setting.

## Why it matters
Estates-General opens is a useful marker in the longer transformation of political authority, society and culture in France.

Ruler at the time: [Louis XVI](https://history-france.com/rulers/louis-xvi)

## Sources
- [Wikipedia topic lookup — Estates-General opens](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=Estates-General+opens&go=Go)
- [Encyclopaedia Britannica topic lookup — Estates-General opens](https://www.britannica.com/search?query=Estates-General+opens)
- [Vie-publique — French institutions and history](https://www.vie-publique.fr/)