Document #1
SOURCE: Abbe Sieyes, “What is the Third Estate?” (1789)
What is necessary that a nation should subsist and prosper?
Individual effort and public functions. All individual efforts may be
included in four classes: (1) Since the earth and the waters
furnish crude products for the needs of man, the first class, in
logical sequence, will be that of all families which devote
themselves to agricultural labor. (2) Between the first sale of
products and their consumption or use, a new manipulation, more
of less repeated, adds to these products a second value more or
less composite. In this manner human industry succeeds in
perfecting the gifts of nature, and the crude product increases
twofold, tenfold, one hundred-fold in value. Such are the efforts of
the second class. (3) Between production and consumption, as
well as between the various stages of production, a group of
intermediary agents establish themselves, useful both to
producers and consumers; these are the merchants and brokers:
the brokers who, comparing incessantly the demands of time and
place, speculate upon the profit of retention and transportation;
merchants who are charged with distribution, in the last analysis,
either at wholesale or at retail. This species of utility characterizes
the third class. (4) Outside of these three classes of productive
and useful citizens, who are occupied with real objects of
consumption and use, there is also need in a society of a series
of efforts and pains, whose objects are directly useful or
agreeable to the individual. This fourth class embraces all those
who stand between the most distinguished and liberal professions and the less esteemed services of domestics. Such are
the efforts which sustain society. Who puts them forth? The Third Estate.
Public functions may be classified equally well, in the present state of affairs, under four recognized heads: the sword, the
robe, the church, and the administration. It would be superfluous to take them up one by one, for the purpose of showing
that everywhere the Third Estate attends to nineteen-twentieths of them, with this distinction; that it is laden with all that
which is really painful, with all the burdens which the privileged classes refuse to carry. Do we give the Third Estate credit
for this? That this might come about, it would be necessary that the Third Estate should refuse to fill these places, or that it
should be less ready to exercise their functions. The facts are well known. Meanwhile they have dared to impose a
prohibition upon the order of the Third Estate. They have said to it: "Whatever may be your services, whatever may be
your abilities, you shall go thus far; you may not pass beyond!" Certain rare exceptions, properly regarded, are but a
mockery, and the terms which are indulged in on such occasions, one insult the more.
….It suffices here to have made it clear that the pretended utility of a privileged order for the public service is nothing more
than a chimera; that with it all that which is burdensome in this service is performed by the Third Estate; that without it the
superior places would be infinitely better filled; that they naturally ought to be the lot and the recompense of ability and
recognized services, and that if privileged persons have come to usurp all the lucrative and honorable posts, it is a hateful
injustice to the rank and file of citizens and at the same time a treason to the public weal. Who then shall dare to say that
the Third Estate has not within itself all that is necessary for the formation of a complete nation? It is the strong and robust
man who has one arm still shackled. If the privileged order should be abolished, the nation would be nothing less, but
something more. Therefore, what is the Third Estate? Everything; but an everything shackled and oppressed. What would
it be without the privileged order? Everything, but an everything free and flourishing. Nothing can succeed without it,
everything would be infinitely better without the others. It is not sufficient to show that privileged persons, far from being
useful to the nation, cannot but enfeeble and injure it; it is necessary to prove further that the noble order does not enter at
all into the social organization; that it may indeed be a burden upon the nation, but that it cannot of itself constitute a
nation.
In the first place, it is not possible in the number of all the elementary parts of a nation to find a place for the caste of
nobles. I know that there are individuals in great number whom infirmities, incapacity, incurable laziness, or the weight of
bad habits render strangers to the labors of society. The exception and the abuse are everywhere found beside the rule.
But it will be admitted that the less there are of these abuses, the better it will be for the State. The worst possible
arrangement of all would be where not alone isolated individuals, but a whole class of citizens should take pride in
remaining motionless in the midst of the general movement, and should consume the best part of the product without
bearing any part in its production. Such a class is surely estranged to the nation by its indolence. The noble order is not
less estranged from the generality of us by its civil and political prerogatives.
What is a nation? A body of associates, living under a common law, and represented by the same legislature, etc. It is not
evident that the noble order has privileges and expenditures which it dares to call its rights, but which are apart from the
rights of the great body of citizens? It departs there from the common order, from the common law. So its civil rights make
of it an isolated people in the midst of the great nation…In regard to its political rights, these also it exercises apart. It has
its special representatives, which are not charged with securing the interests of the people. The body of its deputies sit
apart; and when it is assembled in the same hall with the deputies of simple citizens, it is none the less true that its
representation is essentially distinct and separate: it is a stranger to the nation, in the first place, by its origin, since its
commission is not derived from the people; then by its object, which consists of defending not the general, but the
particular interest. The Third Estate embraces then all that which belongs to the nation; and all that which is not the Third
Estate, cannot be regarded as being of the nation.
What is the Third Estate? It is the whole.
1. Is Abbe Sieyes expressing his frustrations with the monarchy or nobility? Identify a couple of examples to
support your opinion.
2. In one or two words, summarize what each class does in society
3. According to Sieyes, what limitation has been placed on the Third Estate?
4. What effect would removing the nobles from society have on France?
Document #2
SOURCE: National Assembly, Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, (1789)
The representatives of the French people, organized as a
National Assembly, believing that the ignorance, neglect, or
contempt of the rights of man are the sole cause of public
calamities and of the corruption of governments, have
determined to set forth in a solemn declaration the natural,
unalienable, and sacred rights of man, in order that this
declaration, being constantly before all the members of the
Social body, shall remind them continually of their rights
and duties; in order that the acts of the legislative power, as
well as those of the executive power, may be compared at
any moment with the objects and purposes of all political
institutions and may thus be more respected, and, lastly, in
order that the grievances of the citizens, based hereafter
upon simple and incontestable principles, shall tend to the
maintenance of the constitution and redound to the
happiness of all. Therefore the National Assembly
recognizes and proclaims, in the presence and under the
auspices of the Supreme Being, the following rights of man
and of the citizen:
Articles:
1. Men are born and remain free and equal in rights. Social
distinctions may be founded only upon the general good.
2. The aim of all political association is the preservation of
the natural and imprescriptible rights of man. These rights
are liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression.
3. The principle of all sovereignty resides essentially in the nation. No body nor individual may exercise any authority which
does not proceed directly from the nation.
4. Liberty consists in the freedom to do everything which injures no one else; hence the exercise of the natural rights of
each man has no limits except those which assure to the other members of the society the enjoyment of the same rights.
These limits can only be determined by law.
5. Law can only prohibit such actions as are hurtful to society. Nothing may be prevented which is not forbidden by law,
and no one may be forced to do anything not provided for by law.
6. Law is the expression of the general will. Every citizen has a right to participate personally, or through his
representative, in its foundation. It must be the same for all, whether it protects or punishes. All citizens, being equal in the
eyes of the law, are equally eligible to all dignities and to all public positions and occupations, according to their abilities,
and without distinction except that of their virtues and talents.
7. No person shall be accused, arrested, or imprisoned except in the cases and according to the forms prescribed by law.
Any one soliciting, transmitting, executing, or causing to be executed, any arbitrary order, shall be punished. But any
citizen summoned or arrested in virtue of the law shall submit without delay, as resistance constitutes an offense.
8. The law shall provide for such punishments only as are strictly and obviously necessary, and no one shall suffer
punishment except it be legally inflicted in virtue of a law passed and promulgated before the commission of the offense.
9. As all persons are held innocent until they shall have been declared guilty, if arrest shall be deemed indispensable, all
harshness not essential to the securing of the prisoner's person shall be severely repressed by law.
10. No one shall be disquieted on account of his opinions, including his religious views, provided their manifestation does
not disturb the public order established by law.
11. The free communication of ideas and opinions is one of the most precious of the rights of man. Every citizen may,
accordingly, speak, write, and print with freedom, but shall be responsible for such abuses of this freedom as shall be
defined by law.
12. The security of the rights of man and of the citizen requires public military forces. These forces are, established for the
good of all and not for the personal advantage of those to whom they shall be entrusted.
13. A common contribution is essential for the maintenance of the public forces and for the cost of administration. This
should be equitably distributed among all the citizens in proportion to their means.
14. All the citizens have a right to decide, either personally or by their representatives, as to the necessity of the public
contribution; to grant this freely; to know to what uses it is put; and to fix the proportion, the mode of assessment and of
collection and the duration of the taxes.
15. Society has the right to require of every public agent an account of his administration.
16. A society in which the observance of the law is not assured, nor the separation of powers defined, has no constitution
at all.
17. Since property is an inviolable and sacred right, no one shall be deprived thereof except where public necessity, legally
determined, shall clearly demand it, and then only on condition that the owner shall have been previously and equitably
indemnified.
1. Look at the list of grievances in the American Declaration of Independence. Identify grievances in the
Declaration of Independence that relate to the articles in the Declaration of the Rights of Man.
Document #3
SOURCE: Jean Paul Marat, Illusion of the Blind Multitude on the Supposed Excellence of the
Constitution, (1791)
The public’s infatuation with the constitution is the
fashionable folly of the moment. There’s no way to be
surprised by this; it’s a thing absolutely new among us,
and for this alone it can’t fail to seduce light and frivolous
men , equally incapable of seizing its defects and of
calculating its ill effects. How could it fail to infatuate the
French, of all people in the world the least reflective?
To this fury for novelty should be added the pitfalls of
vanity. When it enters the head of a people who have
broken their chains, nothing in the world is more apt to
flatter self-love than the idea of an indefinite freedom
supported by the supreme power, and one can conceive
just how far the enthusiasm of limited but honest citizens
for the new order of things can be carried. And it’s not that
the scoundrels at the head of affairs haven’t taken pains to
inspire this infatuation. What strings haven’t they played on
with this end in sight?
In the first place, a mass of bought-off pens have
represented the constitution as the most sublime work
ever given birth to by the human spirit; as an eternal
monument to wisdom and virtue, as the infallible guarantor
of the nation’s happiness. These pompous elegies have
been circulated throughout the empire, while no occasion has been missed to flatter the self-love of the people by
presenting to it a false image of its strength and its freedom, at the very moment when new chains are being forged for it.
Credulous Parisians! Remember the inscriptions that decorated the altar of the Fatherland the day of the military
federation. It said to the people: You are the sovereign. You are also the legislator. The law is still against you. And the
blind multitude, puffed up with vanity, didn’t see that this whole foolish apparatus had no other goal than that of
metamorphosing the soldiers of the Fatherland into satellites of the executive power, and to chain them to the maintaining
of the evil decrees that returned authority to the hands of the prince.
In the midst of the cries of enthusiasm that filled the air the voice of the Friend of the People vainly spoke out to reveal the
trap and recall you to wisdom. What he said to you then – and what he said a hundred times – I repeat to you today: the
constitution is a failure, a complete failure and so completely failed that it forms the most dreadful of governments, for in
the last analysis it is nothing but an administration of royal commissioners still connected to the noblesse de la robe and
followed by armed satellites, i.e., a true military and noble despotism.
1. How does Marat characterize the French people who are impressed with the 1791 constitution?
2. Explain how Marat uses the chain metaphor.
Document #4
SOURCE: Maximilien Robespierre, Justifying the Terror, (1794)
It is time to mark clearly the aim of the Revolution
and the end toward which we wish to move; it is time
to take stock of ourselves, of the obstacles which we
still face, and of the means which we ought to adopt
to attain our objectives....
What is the goal for which we strive? A peaceful
enjoyment of liberty and equality, the rule of that
eternal justice whose laws are engraved, not upon
marble or stone, but in the hearts of all men.
We wish an order of things where all low and cruel
passions are enchained by the laws, all beneficent
and generous feelings aroused; where ambition is the
desire to merit glory and to serve one's fatherland;
where distinctions are born only of equality itself;
where the citizen is subject to the magistrate, the
magistrate to the people, the people to justice; where
the nation safeguards the welfare of each individual,
and each individual proudly enjoys the prosperity and
glory of his fatherland; where all spirits are enlarged
by the constant exchange of republican sentiments and by the need of earning the respect of a great people; where the
arts are the adornment of liberty, which ennobles them; and where commerce is the source of public wealth, not simply of
monstrous opulence for a few families.
In our country we wish to substitute morality for egotism, probity for honor, principles for conventions, duties for etiquette,
the empire of reason for the tyranny of customs, contempt for vice for contempt for misfortune, pride for insolence, the love
of honor for the love of money that is to say, all the virtues and miracles of the Republic for all the vices and snobbishness
of the monarchy.
We wish in a word to fulfill the requirements of nature, to accomplish the destiny of mankind, to make good the promises of
philosophy that France, hitherto illustrious among slave states, may eclipse the glory of all free peoples that have existed,
become the model of all nations.... That is our ambition; that is our aim.
What kind of government can realize these marvels? Only a democratic government.... But to found and to consolidate
among us this democracy, to realize the peaceable rule of constitutional laws, it is necessary to conclude the war of liberty
against tyranny and to pass successfully through the storms of revolution. Such is the aim of the revolutionary system
which you have set up....
Now what is the fundamental principle of democratic, or popular government- that is to say, the essential mainspring upon
which it depends and which makes it function? It is virtue: I mean public virtue.
That virtue is nothing else but love of fatherland and its laws.... The splendor of the goal of the French Revolution is
simultaneously the source of our strength and of our weakness: our strength, because it gives us an ascendancy of truth
over falsehood, and of public rights over private interests; our weakness, because it rallies against us all vicious men, all
those who in their hearts seek to despoil the people.... It is necessary to stifle the domestic and foreign enemies of the
Republic or perish with them. Now in these circumstances, the first maxim of our politics ought to be to lead the people by
means of reason and the enemies of the people by terror.
If the basis of popular government in time of peace is virtue, the basis of popular government in time of revolution is both
virtue and terror: terror without virtue is murderous, virtue without terror is powerless. Terror is nothing else than swift,
severe, indomitable justice; it flows, then, from virtue.
1. What traits does Robespierre value?
2. How does Robespierre define virtue?