What does this French Revolution Image Show?

by Happycrusher

Could anyone help with what this painting shows? Thanks in advance

https://history114frenchrevolutionandnapoleon.files.wordpress.com/2018/08/image-cartoon-three-estates1.jpg

davepx

It's titled Le tiers-état écrasé or "The third estate crushed" and presumably dates from 1789, and shows a noble in military garb and a priest (the first two estates in the States-General convened that year and supposedly representing France's classes) standing on a stone or lump of wood that's in turn crushing a commoner (the third estate).

The intervening burden is labelled "taille [taxes on commoners or their land), impôts [other taxes] et corvées [labour services owed by peasants to the lord]". So it's an attack on the nobility and the church for crushing the common people with feudal obligations, the focus of the third estate's challenge to the status quo in the Revolution's initial stages.