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Primary sourceBook1788

Essai sur les privilèges

Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès · 1788

Sieyès' 1788 pamphlet attacking noble privilege, written before his famous Third Estate essay.

Sieyès' own earlier pamphlet, showing the development of the arguments he later made famous.

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Title page scan of 'Essai sur les privilèges' in French, with the heading 'ESSAI SUR LES PRIVILÈGES', a round library stamp at left, an opening paragraph of body text, and a page number '(1788)' near the bottom. Page is grainy and partly faded.
Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès, Essai sur les privilèges, 1788.

About this source

What it is

A pamphlet written by Abbé Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès in 1788, titled "Essay on Privileges." It argues against the system of privilege enjoyed by the nobility and clergy.

Why it matters

This was Sieyès' first major published attack on noble privilege, arguing it cost the privileged little while discouraging everyone else. It set out ideas he would develop further in his famous pamphlet on the Third Estate the following year, and shows how his thinking developed just before the Revolution began.

Look closer

  • What examples does Sieyès use to explain how privilege works?
  • Why might attacking privilege in 1788 have been a risky thing for a clergyman to do?
  • How does this pamphlet connect to his later, more famous writing?

This book is part of the curated material that grounds the AI version of Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès on Humy.ai — when students ask about related events, the AI can quote it and cite it.

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Oil portrait of a seated man with curly red-brown hair wearing a dark double-breasted overcoat and white cravat, holding a round dark hat in his lap, against a plain olive-brown background. Latin inscriptions read EMM. JOS. SIEYES and ÆTATIS SUÆ. 69, with signature L. David Bruxelles 1817.Painting

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