The name in both cases signifies, whatever the ultimate divergence in character of the two bodies, the assembly of the representatives of the various estates of the realm, called together for purposes of legislation or deliberation.
For comparison, the parliaments of Jersey and Guernsey are called The States in English, being originally summoned from the estates of the bailiwicks.
This article incorporates text from the public domain 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica.
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The prospect of an Estates-General highlighted the conflict of interest between the Second Estate (the nobility) and the Third Estate (in theory, all of the commoners; in practice the middle class or bourgeoisie).
The Third Estate, theoretically representing the other 98% of the French population and, in practice, representing an increasing proportion of the country's wealth, could still be outvoted by the other two Estates, which historically had often voted with each other.
However, with the etiquette of 1614 strictly enforced, the clergy and nobility in their full regalia, the physical locations of the deputies from the three estates dictated by the protocol of an earlier era, there was an immediate hint that less had, in fact, been achieved.
In the 16th century, however, the estates again claimed that their consent was necessary for the establishment of new taxation, and, on the whole, the facts seemed to be in favour of this view at the time.
On the assembly of the estates the cahiers of the bailliages were incorporated into a cahier for each gouvernement, and these again into a cahier general or general statement, which was presented to the king, and which he answered in his council.
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