1614 Estates General

On 23rd February 1614 ended the gathering of the Estates General which had been ordered by the then 13 year-young King Louis XIII.

The Estates General was a parliament gathering the three bodies of the State: Clergy, Nobility, and Third Estate (the commoners). This parliament did not seat on a regular basis but convened should the King require an effort from the population, ie raising a new tax or engaging the kingdom into war.

This occasion was the 33rd time the Estates General had convened since its creation in 1302. In the span of about three centuries, they had roughly met in average every ten years. After that 1614 meeting, Louis XIII and Cardinal Richelieu started establishing Absolute Monarchy, and the parliament simply ceased to exist… Until 1789…