It was impossible to pay a moment’s attention to the interest of the
Nation without noticing the political nullity of the Third Estate. The Minister even seems to have realized that the distinction between the three
orders was incompatible with any hope of a successful outcome and was
probably aiming to make that distinction disappear in the fullness of time.
This at least appears to have been the spirit in which the initial plan for
the provincial assemblies seems to have been conceived and drafted. It
needs only to be read with a little attention for it to be clear that it had no
concern with the personal status of citizens. Its only concern was with
their property or their real status. It was to be as a property owner and not
as a priest, a noble, or a commoner that one was to be summoned to attend
these interesting assemblies. They were interesting not only in the
objective that they were supposed to serve, but even more so because of
the way that they were to be convoked. It amounted to the establishment
of a genuinely national representation