Top Ten Grievances on the Eve of Revolution

Image right: the cahier of the parish of Saint-Forget (1789). Source: Conseil Général des Yvelines.

Nobility	Towns	Rural Parishes
1. Regular Meetings of the Estates-General	1. Taxation in general	1. Taxation in general
2. Taxation in general	2. Provincial Estates	2. Salt tax (gabelle)
3. Veto on taxation for the Estates-General	3. Regular Meetings of the Estates-General	3. Tax on alcoholic beverages
4. Provincial Estates	4. Vote by head at the Estates-General	4. Salt monopoly
5. Censorship	5. Veto on taxation for the Estates-General	5. Tax on legal acts
6. Personal liberties	6. Customs duties	6. Compulsory labor services on roads
7. Allocation of taxes	7. Tax on legal acts	7. Provincial Estates
8. Government pensions	8. Censorship	8. Direct taxes (taille)
9. Authorizations for arrest	9. Government pensions	9. Praise of Louis XVI
10. Customs duties	10. Lack of career opportunities in the military	10. Tax exemptions and privileges enjoyed by the clergy

This chart lists the "top ten" themes contained in the cahiers de doléances, sorted according to the social group to which the signatories belonged. The cahiers were lists of concerns or grievances compiled in the spring of 1789 and were to serve as mandates for representatives elected to the Estates-General of France, which convened the following summer. Approximately 40,000 cahiers were composed during the spring months. This chart is based on a representative sample of them.

The first column describes the 10 most frequent themes in doléances presented by the French nobility in the summer of 1789; the second column shows the top ten presented by local "general assemblies" of the Third Estate, which usually indicates a majority of city-folk; the third column reflects a sample of doléances composed by rural parishes, which we can assume reflect the concerns of the French countryside. Several things about this comparison stand out:

• The nobility were especially keen on personal liberties and on the authority of the upcoming Estates General: the common theme here is a concern with the arbitrary power of the king and his officials, who had been nibbling away at traditional, local privileges. We can interpret this concern with the "liberty" and power of Estates as a traditional, noble complaint, expressed in the language of Enlightenment.
• Like the nobility, city-dwellers are concerned with the authority of the Estates General, but are more concerned with barriers to the market: concerns about customs duties and taxes on legal acts, for example, pertain to the free flow of trade. Their concern with Estates General, moreover, reflects and eagerness to diminish noble privilege: voting by head in the Estates General, for example, would throw more power to non-nobles.
• Unlike the nobility and the city-dwellers, rural people are overwhelmingly concerned with the burden of state taxation: after "taxation in general," which they share with the other two orders, all but two of the rural "top ten" concern taxation. By contrast, concern with the voting rules for the Estates General are almost entirely absent from the rural "top ten."