His gigantic physique, half-broken by
disease and imprisonment, his shaggy eyebrows, his heavy head, gave him
an impressive, though sinister, appearance. And for quickness in
perceiving at once a problem and its solution, as well as for gifts of
reverberating oratory, he was unsurpassed.
[Sidenote: Sieyes]
Of less force but greater tact was the priest, Sieyes (1748-1836),
whose lack of devotion to Christianity and the clerical calling was
matched by a zealous regard for the skeptical and critical philosophy
of the day and for the practical arts of politics and diplomacy. It was
a pamphlet of Sieyes that, on the eve of the assembling of the Estates-
General, furnished the Third Estate with its platform and program.
"What is the Third Estate?" asks Sieyes. "It is everything," he
replies. "What has it been hitherto in the political order? Nothing!
What does it desire? To be something!"
[Sidenote: Meeting of the Estates-General (May, 1789)]
[Sidenote: Constitutional Question Involved in the Organization of the
Estates-General]
The position of the Third Estate was still officially undefined when
the Estates-General assembled at Versailles in May, 1789.
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