In early May, as the deputies from all three Estates came to Versailles for the scheduled opening of the Estates General they carried with them cahiers enjoining them to reform the constitution in broadly similar ways. One major matter that divided them was the question of how the deputies would meet and vote. Deputies from the Third Estate came determined to pursue common meetings of the three orders with matters decided by a vote by head. Noble and Clerical deputies were split on the issue, but a majority in both orders carried cahiers encouraging or requiring them to seek separate meetings and a vote by order. The electoral regulations sent out by the king in January had not settled which form would prevail. From the very first meeting of the Estates General, the orders entered into a prolonged stalemate as the Third Estate refused to conduct business without first verifying all deputy credentials in common in the main meeting hall and the Nobles insisted that credentials be verified separately by each order.

One of the most remarkable features of the early Revolution was the absence of direct communication between the Third Estate and Louis XVI. The king had given no instructions about how to regulate communication between himself and the orders. The matter devolved to the Keeper of the Seals, Charles Louis François de Paule de Barentin, who took it upon himself to act as the supervisor for everything related to the Estates General. He became the conduit through which communication between the orders and Louis passed. But Barentin was deeply hostile to the pretensions of the Third Estate, going back at least as far as the time of the Result of the King’s Council of State of 1788. Until mid July, Barentin managed communications to the benefit of the Noble order, generally refusing to find times for members of the Third Estate to meet with the king. During the stalemate, the deputies of the Third Estate had only been given one meeting with Louis and it was at the worst time possible, coming two days after the death of the king’s oldest son.