What is the Third Estate?

"Qu'est-ce que le tiers état?" is a pamphlet written by Abbé Sieyès in January 1789. In it, Sieyès argued that the Third Estate was a complete nation and would be better off without the "dead weight" of the privileged orders. The pamphlet was Sieyès response to Jacques Necker's invitation for writers to state how they thought the Estates-General should be organized. Sieyès stated that the people want: 1) genuine representatives in the Estates-General 2) representatives equal to the other two orders taken together 3) votes taken by heads and not by orders.

General summary and significance

What Is The Third Estate? Everything

What Has It Been Until Now In The Political Order? Nothing

What Does It Want To Be? Something

The contributions of Sieyès’s pamphlet were indispensable to the revolutionary thought that projected France down the slippery slope that became the French Revolution. In his pamphlet he outlined the desires and frustrations of the alienated class of people that made up the third estate. In many senses of the expression, he was the force that ripped the band-aid off the Ancien Régime in France, there by revealing the fraudulent nobility and more importantly the overburdened and despondent working class on which they preyed. The pamphlet was essentially the rallying cry that united a voiceless class, whose subjugation by an elitist and self-serving French political culture, gave way to an unheard of political force. None the less, a force with outlined and clearly stated grievances that for the first time were not to be overlooked in the convocation of the Estates General.

The pamphlet redefined the meaning of “public service,” against the conventional wisdom. The aristocracy defined themselves as an elite ruling class charged with the “arduous” task of maintaining the social order in France. On the contrary, Sieyès saw public service as a function performed not by the first or second but rather the third estate. Expression of radical thought at its best, the pamphlet placed sovereignty not in the hands of the uninformed, self-serving aristocrats, but instead defined the nation of France by its working class, whose daily trials and tribulations “are the activities which support society.” The French Revolution could not have been what it was without this patriotic and “radical” message, more importantly one so eagerly dispersed by the rising revolutionary politics within the third estate.

Furthermore, by defining the third estate as the primary mechanism of public service, he deliberately called into question the role of the aristocracy, alternatively portraying their role as foreign to the nation of France. The aristocratic arrogance and their ability to act absolutely and without query were precisely the grounds upon which Sieyès justified noble privilege as “treason to the commonwealth.” This being perhaps the most daunting of his rhetorical repertoire, Sieyès essentially used the nobility’s own arrogance and self-imposed privileges to establish the aristocracy as an alien body acting outside of the general will and the nation of France. Ironically, it was for these exact self-serving means that the Parlement of Paris pressured the king to call the Estates general. As a consequence, the resulting conflict between the orders inspired the proper political sphere from which the revolution grew.

Perhaps most significant was the influence of Sieyès’s pamphlet on the structural concerns that arose surrounding the convocation of the Estates general. Specifically, the third estate demanded their representation be made up of members from the third estate, that the number of deputies for their order be equal that of the two privileged orders combined, and most controversially “that the States General Vote, Not by Orders, but by Heads.” The pamphlet took these issues to the masses and their partial appeasement was met with revolutionary reaction. By addressing the issues of unjust representation directly, Sieyès inspired resentment and agitation that united the third estate against the feudalistic traditions of the Ancien Régime.