States-General
2 of the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for States-General. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
so called in contradistinction to the local états provinciaux, the only representative assembly of France up to the Revolution. Under the Karolings there was an annual assembly of clergy and nobles, called either the Champ de Mars or the Champ de Mai, according to the time of meeting, but it had little of a representative character. The States-General properly so called was first assembled by Philippe le Bel in 1302, on the occasion of his disagreements with the Pope. It was composed of representatives of the three estates, nobles, clergy, and tiersétat or bourgeoisie. It assembled at pretty frequent intervals during the 14th century and not so regularly in the 15th and 16th centuries, being princi- M pally occupied with financial matters, per though its functions in the imposition down of taxation, etc., were very undefined, the and its powers were encroached on from time to time by the royal authority. It had no legislative power whatever. The last States-General before the famous one which heralded the Revolution was that held under Louis XIII. in 1614. From that date till May 5, 1789, the crown absorbed the whole functions of taxation as well as of government. The States-General of 1789, almost immediately on its constitution, was resolved by the secession of the representatives of the tiers-état into the Assemblée Nationale. The name States-General is also applied to the legislative body of Holland, lineally descended from the Estates- General of the United Province, which took such a prominent and honorable part in the revolt of the Netherlands.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
. See France ; French Revolution
What Has Changed in the Last Century
The historical account is still the standard one: the States-General first met under Philip IV in 1302, last met under Louis XIII in 1614, and was summoned again on 5 May 1789 only to dissolve into the National Assembly within weeks. Nothing since Collier's wrote this in 1921 has altered that story, and France has never revived the institution. What has moved is the other body Collier's mentions almost in passing: the Dutch Staten-Generaal, which still sits at The Hague as the Netherlands' parliament, with a directly elected Second Chamber of 150 members and an indirectly elected First Chamber of 75. Modern historians also press harder than Collier's does on the cahiers de doléances of 1789 and on the voting-by-head dispute, which they treat as the hinge of the whole crisis rather than a procedural detail.
Written for this edition, 2026.