What Is The Third Estate 
What is The Third Estate?
Forging The Modern World
What is the Third State? What has it been until now in the political order? What does it want to be? What is necessary that a nation should subsist and prosper? These are the questions you need to ask yourself when you read Emmanuel (Abbe’) Sieyes’s “Qu’est-ce que le tiers etat?” or “What Is the Third Estate?” Emmanuel Sieyes was a French monk who was an important participant in many stages of the French Revolution.1 When the financial crisis in France forced the King to convene the Estates General, The minister Necker asked Abbe’ Sieyes his opinion on how the Estate General should be constituted. So Abbe Sieyes produced his popular and influential pamphlet “What is the Third Estate?” that shaped France into their economic state. He pretty much says that France would be nothing without the third estate. Its contents were heavily influenced by the work of enlightenment philosophers such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau.2
Abbe de Sieyes wrote about his theory of the importance of the third estate and how the Estate General should be constituted for his Minister Necker. “The title refers to the three estates, or classes, of France: the clergy (first estate), the aristocracy (second estate), and the common people including the bourgeoisie (third estate).”3Sieyes suggests to in his pamphlet that the third estate is “the only estate of importance.”4 He says this because this was at the time early in the French Revolution when the third estate had no power in the Estates General. The third estate consisted of everyone and it was more important than most people realized at the time. Sieyes wanted to get his point across throughout through his pamphlet about how important the third estate actually was.
“What are the essentials of national existence and prosperity? Private enterprise and public functions.”5 Sieyes says this is what France needs to do for national existence and
Forging The Modern World
What is the Third State? What has it been until now in the political order? What does it want to be? What is necessary that a nation should subsist and prosper? These are the questions you need to ask yourself when you read Emmanuel (Abbe’) Sieyes’s “Qu’est-ce que le tiers etat?” or “What Is the Third Estate?” Emmanuel Sieyes was a French monk who was an important participant in many stages of the French Revolution.1 When the financial crisis in France forced the King to convene the Estates General, The minister Necker asked Abbe’ Sieyes his opinion on how the Estate General should be constituted. So Abbe Sieyes produced his popular and influential pamphlet “What is the Third Estate?” that shaped France into their economic state. He pretty much says that France would be nothing without the third estate. Its contents were heavily influenced by the work of enlightenment philosophers such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau.2
Abbe de Sieyes wrote about his theory of the importance of the third estate and how the Estate General should be constituted for his Minister Necker. “The title refers to the three estates, or classes, of France: the clergy (first estate), the aristocracy (second estate), and the common people including the bourgeoisie (third estate).”3Sieyes suggests to in his pamphlet that the third estate is “the only estate of importance.”4 He says this because this was at the time early in the French Revolution when the third estate had no power in the Estates General. The third estate consisted of everyone and it was more important than most people realized at the time. Sieyes wanted to get his point across throughout through his pamphlet about how important the third estate actually was.
“What are the essentials of national existence and prosperity? Private enterprise and public functions.”5 Sieyes says this is what France needs to do for national existence and