Essai sur les privilèges. Qu'est-ce que le Tiers-Etat? Vue sur les moyens... Préliminaire de la constitution

Octavo of (1) leaf, 54 pp., (2) leaves, 180 pp., VIII, 168 pp., (2) leaves, 21 pp., 14 pp.

Marbled Havana calf, smooth spine decorated with gilt fleurons, coat of arms at head, red morocco title label, decorated edges, sprinkled edges. Period binding.

195 x 122 mm.

Sieyès, the Abbé (Emmanuel-Joseph, Count). Essay on Privileges. New edition 1789. Followed by What is the Third Estate? – An overview of the means of execution available to the representatives of France in 1789. – Preliminary to the Constitution Recognition and reasoned exposition of the Rights of Man and Citizen. By M. L’Abbé Sieyès. – Declaration of the rights of man in society by M. L’Abbé Sieyès. Third corrected edition.

Paris and Versailles, 1789.

Collection of five essential works by Abbé Sieyès bound at the time for François, Duke of la Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, whose innovative philosophical and economic ideas received the full favor of Louis XVI at his accession.

What is the Third Estate?is here in the original third state edition, the most sought after, as it is greatly expanded compared to the first printing published in January of the same year.

This is the reference edition cited by Michaud in the universal biography.

The Preliminaries to the Constitutionare here in the original edition (Monglond, Volume I, columns 130-131).

The Overview of the means of execution available to the representatives of France in 1789is in the second expanded edition; appears here for the first time the Preliminary Notice by Sieyès dedicated to Necker (Monglond, Volume I, 122).

Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès (1748–1836) became chaplain to Madame Sophie, one of Louis XVI’s aunts (1778) and when Lubersac was transferred to Chartres in 1780, he took him as grand vicar. In these various positions, he established connections in Chartres with Pétion, in the clergy chamber with Talleyrand, in Orléans with Bishop Jarente, a leading figure of the liberal and libertine high clergy. The young priest had joined Freemasonry and was counted among the most active members of the famed Nine Sisters lodge.

In the summer of 1788, the Duke of Orléans asked him to revise a pamphlet drafted by his secretary, Choderlos de Laclos. According to Talleyrand, “the abbé, who by nature is rarely satisfied with the work of others, found nothing suitable and prepared a new draft.”

This became the Overview of the means of execution available to the representatives of France in 1789.

Sieyès then became famous by publishing under his name an Essay on Privileges in November 1789 and, above all, What is the Third Estate? the following January.

The success of this treatise was enormous. The questions and answers that opened and defined it became instantly famous: “1) What is the Third Estate? Everything. 2) What has it been until now in the political order? Nothing. 3) What does it want? To become something.”

Sieyès wrote “The Third must not fear retracing its steps to the past. Go back to the year before the {Frankish} conquest. Why not send back to the forests of Franconia all those families that still boldly claim descent from a race of conquerors?... The nobility sided with the conquerors! Well then, it must be made to go over to the other side. The Third will become noble by becoming conqueror in its turn.”

The effect produced by this work brought its author immense popularity… among the Third Estate.

One of the copies of Abbé Sieyès’s works that has come down to us in elegant armorial binding of the period.

Before “What is the Third Estate?” Sieyès was unknown, afterwards he became famous only among the Third Estate, which did not possess many armorial books. It is also known that these occasional writings generally circulated unbound.

Copy bound at the time with the arms of François, Duke of la Rochefoucauld-Liancourt.

“François Alexandre Frédéric de la Rochefoucauld (1747–1827), having displeased Madame Du Barry, left court to devote himself to agriculture. The nobility sent him to sit at the Estates General in 1789; he proved both a defender of royalty and of public liberties; president of the National Assembly on 18 July 1789, he was forced to flee to England after 10 August 1792. He visited North America and returned to France in 1799. He was made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor by Napoleon I for his useful achievements. Louis XVIII admitted him to the Chamber of Peers.” (O. Hermal, pl. 647).