Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès
Contributions
- Déclaration des droits de l'homme et du citoyen has translation author
- Essai sur les privilèges has translation author
- Notice sur la vie de Sieyès, Membre de la première Assemblée Nationale et de la Convention, écrite à Paris, en messidor, deuxième année de l'ère républicaine (vieux style, juin 1794) has translation author
- Préliminaire de la Constitution française, reconnaissance et exposition raisonnée des droits de l'homme & du citoyen has translation author
- Qu'est-ce que le Tiers État? has translation author
Knows
- Bertrand Barère freemason journalist jurist politician translator writer
- Napoléon Bonaparte military politician writer
- Jacques-Pierre Brissot de Warville abolitionist bookseller entrepreneur pamphleteer politician publisher translator writer
- Félicité Brissot de Warville translator
- Pierre-Jean-Georges Cabanis philosopher scientist
- Sébastien-Roch-Nicolas de Chamfort journalist playwright poet translator writer
- Nicolas de Caritat, marquis de Condorcet abolitionist journalist philosopher politician scientist translator writer
- Anne-Catherine Helvétius salonnière
- Louis Marie de La Révellière-Lépeaux politician writer
- François-Alexandre-Frédéric, duc de La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt diplomat economist freemason journalist military politician traveller writer
- Honoré-Gabriel Riqueti, comte de Mirabeau abolitionist pamphleteer politician translator writer
- Konrad Engelbert Oelsner writer
- Thomas Paine journalist philosopher revolutionary writer
- Sampson Perry journalist pamphleteer physician publisher writer
- Nicolas-Edme Rétif de la Bretonne bookseller journalist novelist pamphleteer publisher
- Pierre-Louis Roederer ambassador economist freemason historian journalist jurist pamphleteer politician writer
- Anne-Louise-Germaine de Staël-Holstein philosopher salonnière traveller writer
- Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord cleric diplomat entrepreneur politician writer
- Charles-Guillaume Théremin diplomat philosopher writer
- Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford civil servant economist military scientist spy teacher writer
- Pierre Victurnien Vergniaud jurist politician
Member of
- Académie française academic institution
- Cercle d'Auteuil, Helvétius Salon salon
- Comité d'instruction publique political institution
- Committee of Public Safety political institution
- Confédération des Amis de la Vérité (Cercle Social) political organisation
- Constitutional Commission of 1792 political institution
- De Staël Salon salon
- French Directory political institution
- Girondists political organisation
- Idéologues political organisation
- Imprimerie du Cercle Social bookseller publisher
- Institut national des Sciences et Arts academic institution
- Les Neuf Soeurs masonic lodge
- National Constituent Assembly political institution
- National Convention political institution
- Société des Amis des Noirs political organisation
- Société patriotique de 1789 political organisation
Notes
As a political thinker, Sieyès combined the visionary role of philosopher-legislator with the ease of a seasoned bureaucrat. Ordained into the priesthood in 1773, he obtained his first position as secretary to the Bishop of Tréguier two years later. It was while sitting in the Estates of Brittany that Sieyès became aware of the immense power held by nobles and noticed the ease with which they advanced through the ranks of ecclesiastical office compared to commoners. He sought to address these issues head-on in the first of his celebrated pamphlets. Once he became an elected representative of the Third Estate in the recently convened Estates-General, Sieyès revealed himself to be a successful political opportunist but he was no orator. He owed his place in the Chamber to his three pamphlets, which had made him famous and read like the work of someone for whom political change was a matter of desperate urgency. David Runciman has compared Sieyès' role during this time to a young Lenin during the first, abortive Russian Revolution of 1905, when he was driven to distraction by the unwillingness of his fellow Marxist revolutionaries to seize the moment and make something happen. See David Runciman, Review of Michael Sonenscher, ed., 'Emmanuel Sieyès: Political Writings' (Hackett, 2003).