Abbé Sieyès and the Third Estate
He was an influential figure in the French Revolution of 1789
Who was Abbé Sieyès?
Abbé Sieyès, also known as Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès, was a French abbé, a high-ranking member of the clergy, who was active in French revolutionary politics. He is best known today for writing and publishing in 1789 his text What is the Third Estate?, which became the manifesto pamphlet for the subsequent French Revolution.
He represented the “Third Estate” at the Estates-General, which was basically a consultative and legislative body of people, who met at the request of the French monarch, to discuss and debate pressing social and political issues. One of his main arguments in his text What is the Third Estate proposed that the French nobility and clergy had unfair social and economic privileges.
Abbé Sieyès’s political ideas
To understand his work and his ideas, it is helpful to break down what exactly he means by the “Third Estate”. In France until the Revolution, French society was composed of various social “orders”. These groups were referred to as the First, Second, and Third Estates. The First Estate was composed of members of the clergy — abbé Sieyès, for example, was a member of the First Estate.
