The États Généraux (Estates-General) was a largely advisory representative body in France that existed for nearly 500 years. The last Estates-General called, in 1788, resulted in many of the events that led to the French Revolution and the overthrow of the monarchy.

King Philip IV in 1302 called the first Estates-General in order to discuss his power struggle with Pope Boniface VIII. The name came from the division of French people into three estates by the Ancien Régime.

Making up the First Estate were the clergy, the religious leaders of the realm. Nobles and royals excluding the monarch made up the Second Estate. Those two Estates together made up about 2 percent of the population for much of this period.

The rest of the population comprised the Third Estate. This included not only commoners and peasants but also slightly wealthier people like businessmen who made respectable but large incomes.

Philip IV convened the Estates-General again in 1308, in order to discuss ways of dealing with the Knights Templar. The Estates-General met again eight years later, in the wake of uncertainty regarding who would succeed Louis IX on the throne, and then, once that process was sorted out in favor Philip V, convened at his behest twice in 1320; on those occasions, however, the representatives rejected the king's call for new revenue schemes.

Another succession crisis, after the death of Charles IV, resulted in another gathering of the Estates-General, in Notre-Dame Cathedral. The next King of France was Philip of Valois, who became Philip VI. (Objections to that decision eventually provoked England's King Edward III to claim the throne, beginning the Hundred Years War. The Estates-General called in 1355 by John II convened during the Hundred Years War and was more receptive to taxation proposals.

That king's capture and ransom demands proved very problematic for the Estates-General, which saw an opportunity hold the ransom for ransom, as it were, in order to push through reforms. The Dauphin (the future King Charles V) refused to countenance the proposed reforms, and the response from well-known businessman Étienne Marcel was to rise up in defiance of the Dauphin; this encouraged a number of peasants to rise up as well, and the government security forces had no trouble putting down the 1358 rebellion, known as the Jacquerie.

The monarch did not always feel compelled to summon the Estates-General. Louis XI did so only once in his more than two decades on the throne. The same was true for Louis XII.

Nominally, the monarch didn't need the Estates-General for every taxation presentation. the taille, or land tax, was a permanent tax that collected according to how much a land a person held. Through the 16th Century, King Francis I reigned for 32 years without once summoning the Estates-General. The non-summoning became the normal, especially after 1614, when the members, summoned by Louis XIII, found it difficult to agree on much at all. The one notable exception to this was during the Wars of Religion, when the Catholic Crown struggled through uprisings by Protestant Huguenots.

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