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After assessing the situation, Necker insisted that Louis XVI call together the Estates-General, a French congress that originated in the medieval period and consisted of three estates. The First Estate was the clergy, the Second Estate the nobility, and the Third Estate effectively the rest of French society.
When the Estates General convened in Versailles on 5 May 1789, however, it became clear that the double representation was something of a sham: voting was to occur by orders, which meant that the collective vote of the 578 representatives of the Third Estate would be weighed the same as that of each of the other Estates.