Être auxiliary

Être in composed tenses

there are only two auxiliaries in French: avoir and être.
As avoir, être is used to form composed tenses for some verbs.
One says je suis tombé or je suis venu. It is the normal conjugation of this verb. Avoir is never used for those verbs.
Verbs with this particularity are called verbes d'état (state verb), ie there is no action but only a state. Here is a few example of those verbs:

mourir    naître    tomber    devenir    
venir     partir    arriver   aller   
...

This is list is not complete, a lot of verbs are on this model.

Être with passive forms

Être can also be employed with transitive verbs ie followed by a direct object complement (COD) in order to give to the subject a passive role. Active: le chat mange la souris (cat eats mouse)
Passive : La souris est mangée par le chat. (mouse is eaten by cat)

When auxiliary être is employed in conjugation, subject takes action meanwhile it is the actor of this action with auxiliary avoir. This change is not possible in case of verb is not followed by a direct object complement (COD). By changing the sentense to passive, COD becomes an agent complement.

One important remark, there is a link between the subject and past participle at passive form.

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