20. What Is The Third Estate

Specifics

All this inspired Sieyès to put pen to paper. In January 1789 he released What is the Third Estate? The premise of this text was quite simple: the Third Estate formed the majority of the nation and did the work of the nation, so it was entitled to political representation. As Thomas Paine had done in America with Common Sense (1776), Sieyès kept the structure of his text simple, while his reasoning was clear and accessible for ordinary readers. In the most quoted passage of What is the Third Estate? he asked three rhetorical questions, to which he provided his own answers: "What is the Third Estate? Everything. What has it been heretofore in the political order? Nothing. What does it demand? To become something."

Sieyes After

As for Emmanuel Sieyès, the impact of What is the Third Estate? brought him considerable respect and popularity. In March 1789 he was elected to represent the Third Estate at the Estates-General - despite Sieyès still belonging to the clergy and having no claim as an advocate, debater or public speaker. When the Third Estate formed as the National Assembly on June 17th, Sieyès personally introduced the motions to initiate this change. Ultimately, however, Sieyès was not radical enough for the revolution that he had helped unleash. He desired a constitutional monarchy and a bourgeois democracy; he could not bring himself to attack the church as he had attacked the nobility.

Leadup

In August 1788 the king decreed the convocation of the Estates General, scheduling it for the middle of 1789. At this point there was uncertainty about the composition and operation of the Estates General. The Estates General had not met since 1614; it had never followed consistent structures or procedures; and there was no constitutional requirement for it to take any particular form. This uncertainty triggered a national discussion about how the formation, operation and powers of the Estates General. In September 1788 the Paris parlement ruled that the Estates General must take the same form as its last meeting in 1614 - that is, with voting conducted by order rather than by head. The following month Jacques Necker, who had proposed doubling the representation of the Third Estate at the Estates General, summoned an Assembly of Notables to provide advice on the matter. Government censorship was also relaxed, allowing pundits and ideologues to write extensively about the forthcoming Estates General.

Prelude

In late 1788 Louis XVI announced the convocation of the Estates General, the Ancien Régime's closest equivalent to a national parliament. His announcement unleashed a flood of political opinion. Hundreds of essays and political pamphlets were published, many speculating about the composition, procedure and likely outcomes of the Estates General. Some of these documents demanded equality and greater representation for France's common people.

Sieyes Says

One pamphlet, written by a middle ranking clergyman, inflamed the political aspirations of the Third Estate more than any other. Emmanuel Sieyès' 'What is the Third Estate?' struck a chord with France's disgruntled lower classes. Asking three rhetorical questions and employing clear but forceful language, What is the Third Estate? sounded as rational and logical as it did compelling. It challenged traditional conceptions of both nation and government, and urged its readers not to be satisfied with hollow promises or compromises. What is the Third Estate? proved enormously popular and became what one historian calls "a script for revolution".

Sieyes

The author of this remarkable document was Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès, a free thinking clergyman. Showed a great interest in liberal political philosophy, particularly the works of John Locke. Despite his liberal views Sieyès continued with his entry into the church, being ordained as an abbé (abbot) in 1772. His career in the clergy was moderately successful but far from happy. After waiting two years for a posting, Sieyès finally obtained a position in the diocese of Chartres. Sieyès became acutely aware of how churchmen of noble birth but mediocre were moving quickly up the ranks. As his dissatisfaction with the church grew, so too Sieyès' interest in the nation's unfolding political crisis.

Impact

What is the Third Estate? became one of the French Revolution's most influential texts. It focused and crystallised the grievances of ordinary people, spelling them out in a rational and logical manner. It reminded ordinary French people that they had been exploited and mistreated - by an unrepresentative government and by a parasitic nobility that refused to surrender privilege or pay its own way. More importantly, What is the Third Estate? provided Third Estate representatives at the Estates General with a set of objectives and demands. Sieyès argued that Third Estate representation must be equal to or larger than the First and Second Estates combined. He also demanded that voting at the Estates General be conducted by head (that is, by a tally of individual deputies) rather than by order (the Three Estates voting in blocs). This shaped the demands of the Third Estate at the Estates General, culminating in the Third Estate breaking away to form the National Assembly. It is questionable whether this would have occurred without the impetus provided by What is the Third Estate?

Iain Hampsher-Monk, historian

"Sieyès - who had an ear for what we would now call the sound-bite - gave a notorious answer to this question [of political representation]. In contrast to the other two orders, the nobility and priesthood, which he claimed were guardians of their own corporate privilege, the Third Estate had 'no corporate interest to defend... it demands nothing less than to make the totality of citizens a single social body.' It was, he claimed, not one order amongst others, but itself, alone, 'the nation': it was 'everything'."