#abbe sieyes

[thephantomofthelibrary]

On August 26, the National Assembly approved Lafayette’s Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen, or bill of rights, but not before Mirabeau and Abbe Sieyes had expanded it from nine to seventeen provisions and eroded Lafayette’s foundation for liberty into a foundation for both license and dictatorship. Gone were Lafayette’s definitions of individual responsibility, along with his provisions for universal suffrage, the abolition of slavery, gender equality, and free trade. Added to the original proposal were unrestricted freedoms of religion and the press, along with a universal right to resist “oppression”, which the document left to each individual to define. Despite the changes, the document reinforced Lafayette’s ill-conceived belief that the French revolution had ended and that his nation was on a firm course toward establishing republican government under a constitutional monarchy.

Harlow Giles Unger, Lafayette, (2002) p.247

[thephantomofthelibrary]

With a copy of the American Constitution in his possession, Lafayette added the word “constitution” to his political rhetoric and helped organize “a constitutional club”> What began as a “Society of Thirty”, however, quickly muchroomed into a large, albeit informal, political party of progressive social and political thinkers, variously called “the Americans” or “Fayettistes”. Members included the marquis de Condorcet, a prominent mathematician who championed abolition; the duc de La Rouchefoucauld, a champion of the poor, and comte Cesar de La Tour-Maubourg, a French general and fellow Auvergnat from Le Puy, not far from Chavaniac. Accomplished commoners and clergymen also joined - the astronomer Jean-Sylvain Bailly, the club-footed bishop of Auton, better known as Talleyrand; and Abbe Sieyes, the chancellor of Chartres, who was working on an inflammatory pamphlet called Essai sur les privileges - “Essay on Privileges”> To Lafayette’s distress, the grotesque giant the comte de Mirabeau also joined the group. A violent ex-convict, Mirabeau exuded seductive oratory that veiled his hideously pockmarked, leonine face and even more hideous soul that reveled in all kinds of debauchery

Harlow Giles Unger, Lafayette, (2002) .226-227

[thephantomofthelibrary]

With each passing day, Fayettistes won new converts among the clergy, and, on June 17, Abbe Sieyes proclaimed a majority of his order ready to vote with the Third Estate. “Considering that we now represent ninety-six percent of the nation,” he moved that the declare themselves a “National Assembly.” They agreed, and ended five centuries of rule by the nobility and clergy. They elected the commoner-scientist Bailly as their first president. Although the voting represented a social and political revolution, it was far from national in character, as Sieyes pretended. The Assembly barely represented 10 percent, let alone 96 percent of the nation, but the vote did force the two, tiny controlling majorities of nobles and clerics to share some of their power with a slightly larger majority of privileges commoners. The nobles and clerics did not cede power graciously, however.

Harlow Giles Unger, Lafayette, (2002) p.232

[thephantomofthelibrary]

Sieyes, of powerful mind, a student of constitutionalism, terse and logical in expression, has made a mark during the electoral period with his pamphlet, Qu'est-ce que le Tiers Etat? What is the Third Estate? His reply was: It is everything; it has been nothing; it should be something.

Robert Matteson Johnstone, The French Revolution: A Short History

[aiviloharas]

What is the Third Estate? Everything. What has it been up to now in the political order? Nothing. What does it demand? To become something.

Abbe Sieyes

[n-nevskaya-n]

What Is the Third Estate? ( Qu'est-ce que le tiers-état?) is a political pamphlet written in January 1789, shortly before the outbreak of the French Revolution, by the French thinker and clergyman Abbé Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès (1748–1836). The pamphlet was the response of Sieyès to finance minister Jacques Necker's invitation for writers to state how they thought the Estates-General should be organized. The pamphlet is organized around three hypothetical questions and the responses of Sieyès. The questions are:

What is the Third Estate? Everything.

What has it been until now in the political order? Nothing.

What does it ask? To become something.

[lemeute]

[whiskeyshakesfor10wholedays-blog]

What is the Third Estate? Everything. What has it been until now in the political order? Nothing. What does it ask? To become something.

Abbé Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès