Cleric and political writer
Born at Fréjus on 3 May 1748, Sieyès entered the Church and became vicar-general of Chartres in 1787. His writings against privilege included the influential 1789 pamphlet What Is the Third Estate? He entered the Estates-General as a representative of the Third Estate for Paris.
His clerical occupation therefore differed from the estate he represented. Separate meetings and voting by order could neutralize the Third Estate's numerical strength. Sieyès turned the dispute over procedure into a claim about which representatives could speak for the nation.
From credential checks to a National Assembly
On 15 June 1789 Sieyès proposed an assembly of the nation's known and verified representatives. Deputies already credentialled, he argued, should not be prevented from acting by absent estates or constituencies. They could express the national will without a separate chamber's veto.
Mirabeau questioned the proposed title and preferred representatives of the French people. Sieyès adopted the name National Assembly suggested by Legrand. On 17 June his revised motion passed 491 to 90. Provisional authorization of taxation and public-debt payments accompanied the assembly's assertion of representative authority.
References: [2]
Constitutional designs and later office
Sieyès voted for Louis XVI's execution in the Convention and later served in the Council of Five Hundred. In 1795 he proposed a constitutional jury drawn equally from former members of the Constituent Assembly, Legislative Assembly and Convention, giving constitutional protection an institutional guardian.
Becoming a Director in 1799, he helped Bonaparte prepare the Brumaire coup. His constitutional design was not accepted unchanged. He became the Conservative Senate's first president and influenced its early membership. After exile during the Restoration, he returned in 1830 and died on 20 June 1836.