Second Estate
Cartoon depicting the burden the third estate crushed under the burden of weight of the First and Second Estate.
The Second Estate was made up of the nobility of France. These were people who held aristocratic titles. The nobility of France was not homogenous group. The highest echelon within the nobility were the Court Nobles who lived in Versailles and had reasonable access to the King and thus the levers of power. Whilst many nobles had the position in name only these hobereaux (old birds) could be found in provincial France holding small amounts of land from which they would receive rent from their farmers.
People could become nobles by earning their title through the sword i.e the military, noblesse d’epee (nobles of the sword) or through their achievements in the civil field such as in finance or manufacture these were known as noblesse de robe (nobles of the robe). It was also possible to buy titles. The Second Estate did not have to pay in the fashion that the Third estate had to. This was deemed morally acceptable as they had devoted themselves to the martial or civil improvement of France. The nobility made up at most 2% of the population.
Edmund Burke on the French Revolution and the church and nobility. Taken from Reflections on the Revolution in France, Penguin Classics, London (2004) p222
Perhaps persons, unacquainted with the state of France, on hearing the clergy and the nobles were privileged in point of taxation, may be led to imagine, that previous to the revolution these bodies had contributed nothing to the state. This is a great mistake. They certainly did not contribute equally with each other, nor either of them equally with the commons. They both however contributed largely. Neither nobility nor clergy enjoyed any exemption from the duties of custom, or from any other of the other numerous indirect impositions, which in France as well as here, make so very large a proportion of all payments to the public. The noblesse paid the capitation. They also paid a land tax, called the twentieth penny, to the height sometimes of three, sometimes of four shillings in the pound; both of them direct impositions of no light nature and no trivial produce.