Publication of Sieyès' What Is the Third Estate?
- When
- 1788–1789
- Where
- composition and printing of the pamphlet; publication of the pamphlet; argument advanced in the pamphlet; revelation of authorship; circulation of the pamphlet
- Episodes
- 5
In January 1789, shortly before the French Revolution began, the clergyman Abbé Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès published the political pamphlet What Is the Third Estate? Written in late 1788 and issued anonymously as a 127-page text, it argued that the Third Estate alone constituted the French nation and became one of the Revolution's most influential pamphlets.
Episodes
- Composition and Printing, Late 1788
Sieyès wrote the pamphlet during the Assembly of Notables and sent it to the printer by 27 December 1788.
- Circulation and Influence
About 300,000 copies reached roughly one million readers, making the pamphlet among the early Revolution's most influential.
- Publication in January 1789
The anonymous 127-page pamphlet appeared in January 1789, shortly before the Revolution began.
- Argument: The Third Estate as the Nation
Sieyès argued the Third Estate alone was a complete nation and the only legitimate estate.
- Authorship Revealed after Third Edition
After the third edition in May 1789, Sieyès revealed himself as the pamphlet's author.
Background and detail
Background. Sieyès composed the pamphlet during the Assembly of Notables, which sat from 6 November to 12 December 1788. By 27 December 1788 the manuscript had been sent to the printer, so that the text could appear in the early days of 1789, shortly before the outbreak of the French Revolution.
Argument of the Pamphlet. Sieyès contended that the third estate—the common people of France—constituted a complete nation in itself, supplying all the men needed to serve in the army, staff the churches, administer the law, and carry out every other operation of society. He maintained that the first and second estates were simply unnecessary and that the Third Estate was France's only legitimate estate, representing the entire population.
Publication and Reception. The text first appeared anonymously as a 127-page pamphlet; four editions eventually followed, and Sieyès revealed his authorship only after the third edition in May 1789. Roughly 300,000 copies were printed, reaching about one million readers, and the work has been compared in influence to the Federalist Papers and the Communist Manifesto.
People involved
- Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès · author; French writer and clergyman (1748–1836) who published the pamphlet anonymously and revealed his authorship after the third edition in May 1789
Sources
- What Is the Third Estate? Wikipedia, revision of 2026-02-16
Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.