During the French Revolution, which group was part of the Third Estate and represented the middle class?

• A. Clergy
• B. Peasants
• C. Sans-culottes
• D. Bourgeoisie

Answer: (D)

The group that fits the description is the bourgeoisie. The Third Estate included everyone who wasn’t in the First Estate (clergy) or the Second Estate (nobility), and within it the middle class emerged as the bourgeoisie. They were urban, educated, and often wealthy merchants, professionals, and business owners who owned property and had influence but lacked the political privileges enjoyed by the nobility. They pushed for greater political power and an end to the old regime’s privileges, drawing on Enlightenment ideas of liberty and equality. The other options don’t fit: the clergy were part of the First Estate, peasants were rural laborers within the Third Estate, and the sans-culottes were radical working-class people from the Third Estate, not the middle class.