Saturday, April 15, 2017

Before the French Revolution, the french nobility argued that it operated to hold together the nation and social order. Does the Abbé Sieyès agree with this idea? Why or why not?

Emmanuel Joseph Sieyes was a Roman Catholic clergyman in 18th-century France. Abbé is the French word for abbot, which often refers to a man who is the head of a monastery, but sometimes, as in Sieyès's case, it can refer to a clergyman who does not lead a monastery. In 1789, Sieyès issued a pamphlet that greatly influenced the French Revolution: "What Is the Third Estate?"
In this pamphlet, Sieyès made it clear that he did not agree that the French nobility operated to hold together the nation and the social order Sieyès argued that the Third Estate, which was composed of the common people of France, held the nation together and should be solely responsible for its governance and also that the first two estates of the clergy and the nobility were simply dead weight. The
Third Estate included the productive elements of society such as agricultural workers, craftsmen, merchants, lawyers, bankers, and others who provided services to the people. According to Sieyès, these people and not the nobility should be the political power in France.
"What Is the Third Estate?" became one of the French Revolution's key documents. As a result, for a time Sieyès wielded considerable political influence. In 1793, he voted in favor of the execution of King Louis XVI.
https://alphahistory.com/frenchrevolution/sieyes-what-is-the-third-estate/

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Emmanuel-Joseph-Sieyes

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