Louis XVI
The Estates-General of 1789 began sitting in May. Like previous Estates-General, it was designed to represent the "three estates" that made up French society. A quarter of its members were elected by the First Estate (Catholic Church priests), another quarter were elected by the Second Estate (the nobles) and the other half were elected by wealthy people from the Third Estate (everyone else). The politicians of the Third Estate wanted to talk about changing French society and reducing the powers of the king, but the king only wanted them to talk about taxes. He very quickly managed to annoy these politicians. For example, they were told that all members would have an equal vote, but then the king decided instead that the Third Estate members would only have half a vote. The Third Estate members thought it was unfair that they represented 95% of the population, but had only a third of the power in the Estates-General.