Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès
Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès was a notable figure in the early stages of the French Revolution, best known for his influential pamphlet "What Is the Third Estate?" published in 1789. Born into a middle-class family, Sieyès was educated in the tradition of Enlightenment thought, which deeply shaped his political views. His early career as a priest and administrative official allowed him to engage with the socio-political issues of the time, ultimately leading him to challenge the existing social order dominated by the privileged estates of clergy and nobility.
Sieyès argued that the Third Estate, or commoners, represented the true productive force of the nation and deserved significant political power. His pamphlet succinctly articulated the grievances and aspirations of the Third Estate, contributing to the revolutionary momentum that followed. While initially a prominent advocate for reform, his political stance evolved as the revolution progressed, leading him to adopt a more moderate position under the radical phase of the revolution.
Sieyès's involvement continued as he transitioned to roles in the Directory and later the Consulate under Napoleon Bonaparte. Although he sought to establish a balanced constitutional government, the rise of Napoleon ultimately diminished his influence. Despite this, Sieyès is remembered for his pivotal role in shaping revolutionary ideas that advocated for citizenship and the abolition of aristocratic privilege, making his work a cornerstone of revolutionary thought in France.
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Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès
French cleric and political theorist
- Born: May 3, 1748
- Birthplace: Frejus, France
- Died: June 20, 1836
- Place of death: Paris, France
Sieyès’s pamphlet What Is the Third Estate? catapulted him into immediate fame as the leading political influence on the early phases of the French Revolution. He continued to play an important background role in all phases of the revolution, until he was forced into exile following the return of the Bourbon kings in 1815.
Early Life
Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès (ay-ma-nwehl zhoh-zehf syay-yehs) was born into a middle-class family of modest means. Five children were supported by the father’s position as postmaster and notary. Emmanuel-Joseph was educated first by a private tutor and then at the Jesuits’ College at Fréjus. A bright child, Emmanuel-Joseph came to be noticed by his teachers, ever on the lookout for talented youth who might be trained for clerical careers. Sons of aristocrats were also recruited but were intended for the upper-level positions, such as bishop.
At the age of seventeen, Sieyès entered the Seminary of Saint-Suplice in Paris, where he gained a reputation for intense reading of Enlightenment writers and eclectic interests in art, music, philosophy, and economics. In 1773, at the age of twenty-five, he was ordained as a priest. Talent and a family friendship with the bishop of Fréjus resulted in his appointment in 1775 as secretary to the bishop of Treguier. His career from this point on would be that of an administrative priest. However, other interests were maturing as well.
In 1775, Sieyès wrote “Letter to the Physiocrats on Their Political and Moral System,” an unpublished work that examined the political implications of economic activity conducted to foster the well-being of the larger national unit. His intense reading was coupled with prolific writing, yet no effort was made to publish anything until late in 1788. Meanwhile his clerical career advanced in 1784 with his appointment as vicar general and chancellor to the bishop of Chartres(Jean-Baptiste de Lubersac), who, like Sieyès, had a passionate interest in Enlightenment thought. Sieyès became a member of the provincial assembly of Orleans in 1787, a year before the calling of the Estates-General by King Louis XVI, and the publication of a small pamphlet catapulted the relatively unknown Sieyès to the front stage of history.
Life’s Work
Facing a financial crisis of significant proportions, Louis XVI declared on August 8, 1788, that he would convoke the Estates-General on May 1, 1789. This body, which last met in 1614, was composed of three estates (the clergy, the nobles, and the commoners). Each of the three groupings had one vote as an estate. Since the body had not met for 175 years, there was great uncertainty about the role of the Estates-General in French political life. However, it was clear that the privileged and tax-exempt first two estates, with their two votes, would block any reform efforts of the Third Estate (the commoners) to limit their privileges. The situation produced spirited writing and debate in the months preceding the opening meeting of the Estates-General.
Sieyès’s first pamphlet, Essai sur les privilèges (essay on privileges), published in November, 1788, was an attack on the very existence of privilege as contrary to natural law, reason, and national community. For Sieyès the nobility was anything but noble. Rather, they were parasitic intruders who sapped wealth from the productive part of the community. Important only in their own corrupted self-concept, the privileged were left over from a primitive past with no future as modern society progressed. A second pamphlet, published in December, explained the imperative of transforming the Estates-General into a national assembly representing the productive part of the nation. Both pamphlets helped solidify Sieyès’s ideas, published in January, 1789, in his longest and most complex pamphlet, Qu’est-ce que le tiers état? (1789; What Is the Third Estate?, 1963). No single pamphlet in human history would have a more far-reaching and immediate effect.
In his landmark pamphlet, the single question “What is the Third Estate?” was answered in a single simple word: “everything.” The complex theory behind the word was that the Third Estate formed the entire productive part of the nation, and thus it alone could constitute the entire nation. To the follow-up question, “What has the Third Estate been in the past?” came the simple reply: “nothing.” The third question, “What does the Third Estate desire?” was answered in the simple phrase “to be something.” Hence, in immediate and dramatic fashion, Sieyès set the Third Estate the objective of politically reconstituting France around itself in order to end the irrational and unfair situation of “everything” politically counting for nothing, and the “nothing,” or nonproductive part of the nation, counting for everything.
Sieyès’s widely discussed pamphlet led to his election as a Third Estate representative from Paris to the Estates-General. Sieyès had moved on June 17, 1789, that the Third Estate declare itself as the national assembly and then to invite the other two estates to join. In spite of the king’s opposition to changing the Estates-General, Sieyès helped convince the Third Estate to act as if it were representative of the national will and to begin passing legislation reforming France on a new basis of equality, thereby ending the old order. These efforts rapidly came to fruition by early August with the passage of a constitution for France. As an early influence in what would be termed the French Revolution, Sieyès capitalized on his prestige as a writer. Lack of public speaking skills and a basic shyness precluded his playing a major role as a politician.
As the revolution passed its first year, Sieyès emerged as a moderate. He opposed the confiscation of church lands to create a new money system (assignats) and the abolition of tithes. He also remained a constitutional monarchist, wanting a king to exercise executive power, but a king who was responsible to national representatives and not to the court nobility. He strongly opposed the idea that a king should have absolute power to veto legislation.
With the transformation of the French monarchy to the First French Republic in September, 1792, following the king’s unwillingness to continue playing the role of constitutional monarch, Sieyès served for three years as a representative to the legislative assembly. As the revolution reached its most radical phase under the leadership of Georges Danton and Robespierre, Sieyès did what was necessary to survive, conforming to the flow of events. He voted for the death penalty for Louis XVI and converted to the worship of human reason instead of Christianity when the issue was forced by Danton. When it became fashionable again under Napoleon I, he changed back to Catholicism.
With the end of the Reign of Terror in 1795 and the establishment of the Directory (a colorless committee of five) exercising executive power, Sieyès was sent on diplomatic missions to The Hague and Berlin. In May, 1799, he became one of France’s five directors. Yet he also realized that the Directory was incapable of providing leadership for France. Ultimately, he conspired with Talleyrand to support Napoleon’s seizure of power on 18 Brumaire (November, 1799, according to the French Republican calendar). Sieyès tried to design a perfect constitution for the new consulate and with Napoleon served as one of three consuls intended to provide executive leadership. However, Sieyès rapidly saw Napoleon become first consul, relegating the other two to figureheads, then consul for life, then emperor. Silence about the changes permitted Sieyès to continue as a senator and to be appointed grand officer in the Legion of Honor (1804) and a count of the empire (1808). However, any sort of active political role came to an end with the subversion of the original consulate.
The fall of Napoleon in 1815 and the return of the Bourbon kings caused Sieyès to flee from Paris to Brussels for fear of being executed as a regicide. After the overthrow of the Bourbons in 1830 and the coming to power of the liberal Louis-Philippe, Sieyès returned to Paris, where he spent the remaining six years of his life.
Significance
The French Revolution provided opportunity for relatively unknown individuals to achieve power, wealth, and fame. The revolution itself moved through stages, both unpredictable and uncontrollable, catalyzed by timely actions or words by virtual unknowns. The Abbé Sieyès, by producing a simple pamphlet at a timely moment, put forth simple but powerful answers, basically “everything, nothing, and something,” to three major issues at a critical turning point in French history.
In current times, fortunes spent on advertising slogans, or on jargon to be used in major election campaigns, could not have resulted in more perfectly crafted words. Sieyès instantly defined the French nation, thus causing aristocratic privilege to be swept away by the concept of citizenship. His What Is the Third Estate? became, along with the Bastille, an icon of the French Revolution. The fact that Sieyès’s idea changed as the revolution changed indicates that a leader of the early stages of the revolution became a follower.
Bibliography
Doyle, William. The Oxford History of the French Revolution. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. A highly readable and well-researched account containing illustrations, maps, an extensive bibliography, and an index.
Forsyth, Murray Greensmith. Reason and Revolution: The Political Thought of the Abbé Sieyès. New York: Holmes & Meier, 1987. An excellent analysis of Sieyès’s thoughts stressing his hatred of privilege and love of equality. Bibliography, index.
Sewell, William Hamilton. A Rhetoric of Bourgeois Revolution: The Abbé Sieyès and “What Is the Third Estate?” Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1994. An in-depth analysis of Sieyès’s rhetorical devices and their appeal. Index and bibliography.
Sonenscher, Michael, ed. Political Writings Including the Debate Between Sieyès and Tom Paine in 1791. Indianapolis, Ind.: Hackett, 2003. The editor provides lengthy and informative insights in his introductions to Sieyès’s three major treatises.