ABSTRACT
THE deputies of the Third Estate were far from forming a social cross-section of the commons of France. Two-thirds of them came from the legal profession or the royal service, the majority of these having previously been agents of the Crown: judges, barristers and mayors. Business and banking accounted for no more than 13 per cent, while landowners, farmers and gentlemen of independent means provided another 10 per cent.1 This heavy predominance of the law and the administration at the expense of industry and agriculture probably accentuated the speculative and theoretical bias of the Assembly, but had less importance than might have been expected since the drafting of the cahiers had revealed a great measure of unanimity within the ranks of the upper middle class.
