Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès (3 May 174820 June 1836), usually known as the Abbé Sieyès (;: "Sieyès se dit (sijɛːs)." ), was a French Catholic priest, abbé, and political writer who was a leading political theorist of the French Revolution (1789–1799). He also held offices in the governments of the French Consulate (1799–1804) and the First French Empire (1804–1815).
His pamphlet What Is the Third Estate? (1789) became the political manifesto of the Revolution, which facilitated transforming the Estates-General into the National Assembly, in June 1789. He was offered and refused an office in the French Directory (1795–1799). After becoming a director in 1799, Sieyès was among the instigators of the Coup of 18 Brumaire (9 November), which installed Napoleon Bonaparte in power.
In addition to his political and clerical life, Sieyès coined the term "sociologie", and contributed to the nascent social sciences.
Early life Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès was born on 3 May 1748, the fifth child of Honoré and Annabelle Sieyès, in the southern French town of Fréjus. Honoré Sieyès was a local tax collector of modest income. Although they claimed some noble blood, the family Sieyès were commoners. Emmanuel-Joseph received his earliest education from tutors and Jesuits, and later attended the collège of the Doctrinaires of Draguignan.
His ambition to become a professional soldier was thwarted by frail health, which, combined with the piety of his parents, led to pursuing a religious career. To that effect, the vicar-general of Fréjus aided Emmanuel-Joseph, out of obligation to his father, Honoré.
Education Sieyès spent ten years at the seminary of Saint-Sulpice in Paris. There, he studied theology and engineering to prepare himself to enter the priesthood. He quickly gained a reputation at the school for his aptitude and interest in the sciences, combined with his obsession over the "new philosophic principles" and dislike for conventional theology.
Sieyès was educated for priesthood in the Catholic Church at the Sorbonne. While there, he became influenced by the teachings of John Locke, David Hume, Edward Gibbon, Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Denis Diderot, Condillac, Quesnay, Mirabeau, Turgot, the Encyclopédistes, and other Enlightenment political thinkers, all in preference to theology. In 1770, he obtained his first theology diploma, ranking at the bottom of the list of passing candidates – a reflection of his antipathy toward his religious education. In 1772, he was ordained as a priest, and two years later he obtained his theology license.
Religious career
Despite Sieyès' embrace of Enlightenment thinking, he was ordained to the priesthood in 1773, but was not hired immediately. He spent time researching philosophy and developing music until about a year later in October 1774 when, as the result of demands by powerful friends, he was promised a canonry in Brittany. Unfortunately for Sieyès, this canonry went into effect only when the preceding holder died. At the end of 1775, Sieyès acquired his first real position as secretary to the bishop of Tréguier where he spent two years as deputy of the diocese. It is here that he sat in the Estates of Brittany and became disgusted with the immense power the privileged classes held.
In 1780, the bishop of Tréguier was transferred to the bishopric of Chartres, and Sieyès accompanied him there as his vicar general, eventually becoming a canon of the cathedral and chancellor of the diocese of Chartres. Due to the fact that the bishop of Tréguier had high regards for Sieyès, he was able to act as a representative of his diocese in the Upper Chamber of the Clergy. It was during this time that Sieyès became aware of the ease with which nobles advanced in ecclesiastical offices compared to commoners. In particular, he was resentful of the privileges granted to the nobles within the Church system and thought the patronage system was a humiliation for commoners.
While remaining in ecclesiastical offices, Sieyès maintained a religious cynicism at odds with his position. By the time he determined to enter priesthood, Sieyès had "freed himself from all superstitious sentiments and ideas". Even when corresponding with his deeply religious father, Sieyès showed a severe lack of piety for the man in charge of the diocese of Chartres. It is theorised that Sieyès accepted a religious career not because he had any sort of strong religious inclination, but because he considered it the only means to advance his career as a political writer.
What Is the Third Estate? In 1788, King Louis XVI proposed the convocation of the Estates-General of France after an interval of more than a century and a half. This proposal, and Jacques Necker's invitation to French writers to state their views as to the organization of society by Estates, enabled Sieyès to publish his celebrated January 1789 pamphlet, Qu'est-ce que le tiers-état? (What Is the Third Estate?). He begins his answer:
This phrase, which was to remain famous, is said to have been inspired by Nicolas Chamfort. The pamphlet was very successful, and its author, despite his clerical vocation (which made him part of the First Estate), was elected as the last (the twentieth) of the deputies to the Third Estate from Paris to the Estates-General. He played his main role in the opening years of the Revolution, participating in the final drafting of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, expanding on the theories of national sovereignty, popular sovereignty, and representation implied in his pamphlet, with a distinction between active and passive citizens that justified suffrage limited to male owners of property.
Sieyès's pamphlet incited a radical reaction from its audience because it involved the "political issues of the day and twisted them in a more revolutionary direction". In the third chapter of the pamphlet, Sieyès proposed that the Third Estate wanted to be "something". But he also stated that, in allowing the privileged orders to exist, they are asking to become "the least thing possible". The usage of such rhetoric in his pamphlet appealed to common causes to unite the audience. At the same time it influenced them to move beyond simple demands and take a more radical position on the nature of government. In this case, the radical position taken by the Third Estate created a sense of awareness that the problems of France were not simply a matter of addressing "royal tyranny", but that unequal privileges under the law had divided the nation. It was from this point that the Revolution's struggle for fair distribution of power and equal rights began in earnest.
Impact on the Revolution Sieyès's pamphlet played a key role in shaping the currents of revolutionary thought that propelled France towards the French Revolution. In his pamphlet, he outlined the desires and frustrations of the alienated class of people that made up the Third Estate. He attacked the foundations of the French Ancien Régime by arguing the nobility to be a fraudulent institution, preying on an overburdened and despondent bourgeoisie. The pamphlet voiced concerns that were to become crucial matters of debate during the convocation of the Estates-General of 1789.
Whereas the aristocracy defined themselves as an élite ruling class charged with maintaining the social order in France, Sieyès saw the Third Estate as representing the nation whether or not the other two orders were present. The pamphlet placed sovereignty not in the hands of aristocrats but instead defined the nation of France by its productive orders composed of those who would generate services and produce goods for the benefit of the entire society. These included not only those involved in agricultural labor and craftsmanship, but also merchants, brokers, lawyers, financiers and others providing services.
Sieyès challenged the hierarchical order of society by redefining who represented the nation. In his pamphlet, he condemns the privileged orders by saying their members were enjoying the best products of society without contributing to their production. Sieyès essentially argued that the aristocracy's privileges established it as an alien body acting outside of the nation of France, and deemed noble privilege "treason to the commonwealth".
Sieyès's pamphlet had a significant influence on the structural concerns that arose surrounding the convocation of the Estates general. Specifically, the Third Estate demanded that the number of deputies for their order be equal to 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 representation directly, Sieyès inspired resentment and agitation that united the third estate against the feudalistic traditions of the Ancien Régime.
As a result, the Third Estate demanded the reorganization of the Estates General, but the two other orders proved unable or unwilling to provide a solution. Sieyès proposed that the members of the First and Second order join the Third Estate and become a united body to represent the nation as a whole. He stated that the Third Estate had the right to consider those who denied this invitation to be in default of their national responsibility. The Third Estate adopted this measure on 5 June 1789. By doing so, they assumed the authority to represent the nation. Sieyès convinced the Third Estate to adopt the term National Assembly and was elected by the Assembly to its constitutional committee in July 1789.
Serving on the constitutional committee, Sieyès argued that the Assembly should not need to seek the King's approval on constitutional matters. Sieyès advocated for equality of voting power, a unicameral legislative body, and the absence of a royal veto over the actions of the legislature. Taking the position that the National Assembly held absolute power as the only true representative of the nation, Sieyès rejected arguments that the King should be able to initiate new elections for the Assembly or have the power to veto legislation.
Sieyès believed that representatives to the Assembly must be free both from influence from above by the King and from influence from below by the people. While voters had the right to put into or take out representatives from power, for the term they were elected, Sieyès held, representatives should be answerable to no one. In September 1789, Sieyès triumphed over the more moderate members of the Assembly led by Mounier when the Assembly voted for a unicameral legislature by a vote of 849 to 89 with 122 abstaining.
Assemblies, Convention, and the Terror Although not noted as a public speaker as he spoke rarely and briefly, Sieyès held major political influence, and he recommended the decision of the Estates to reunite its chamber as the National Assembly; he opposed the abolition of tithes and the confiscation of Church lands. His opposition to the abolition of tithes discredited him in the National Assembly, and he was never able to regain his authority.
Elected to the special committee on the constitution, he opposed the right of "absolute veto" for the King of France, which Honoré de Mirabeau unsuccessfully supported. He had considerable influence on the framing of the departmental system; after the spring of 1790, he was eclipsed by other politicians, and was elected only once to the post of fortnightly president of the Constituent Assembly.