The French statesman and political writer Comte Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès (1748-1836) known as the Abbé Sieyès, upheld the interests of the Third Estate. His effort to consolidate a moderate republican government established Napoleon Bonaparte as the head of state.

Born at Fréjus on May 3, 1748, Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès got his primary education from the Jesuits in his hometown and continued into advanced study in theology. Appointment as a canon in the cathedral chapter of Tréguier (1775) brought him the appellation of Abbé (used in France not only for abbots but also for churchmen without a parish), and by the eve of the French Revolution he had been promoted to vicar general of the bishop of Chartres. But his interests in these years of intensive political debate turned from theology and Church administration to public affairs, and when the...