1789 *, with this infcription, calculated to fhew his intention: "We 66 may elevate our defires to the ex"tent of our rights; but our pro"jects must be measured by our "means." This pamphlet was delivered to the printer, and was advancing towards publication, when, on his return to Paris, he thought fit to fufpend its appearance. The po litical question which interefted and employed the minds of all France, feemed already to have changed its nature; it was forced to yield to the modifications which the pretenfions of. the different claffes had urged. It was no longer the whole nation, defirous of afferting its rights aginft the abfolute power of royalty; it was the nobility, ever ready to form combinations, who, taking advantage of the reunion and difpleasure of the Notables, had no other aim than that of urging their own interefts againft thofe of the people, with the hope, likewife, of caufing the Minifter to confirm their account, as well as their new pretenfions, fimply by putting him in fear. This was the circum. ftance which led Sieyes to write his Effai fur les Privileges t, and immediately afterwards, his work entitled, Qu' eft ceque le Tiers-Etat. It is ealy, by comparing these two publications with the former, to fhew how different, though not oppofite, their fpirit is to that in which he traced his Vues fur les Moyens d' Exécution. These three pamphlets appeared immediately following each other, at the end of 1788, and the beginning of 1789. The Tiers-Etat of Paris, which the Minifters had thought fit to convene very late, had to nominate twenty deputies to the States General. It was agreed by the electoral affembly, that neither a noble nor a priest fhould be eligible. After the nineteenth fcrutiny, the vote of exclufion was refcinded, and the majority of votes, at the laft ballot, were in favour of the author of Qu'est-ce que le Tiers? The States General were affembled, and several weeks were cnnfumed in vain difputes refpecting the verification of the powers. The public, all France, expected, with impatience, the firft efforts of the reprefentatives of the people. Sieyes dared to cut the cable which still confined the veffel near the shore. He thought it became him to endeavour to put in practice the principles which had made him known, and procured him the truft he poffeffed; opinions which became every day more decidedly thofe of the people at large. No man has more openly and decidedly fhewn his manner of thinking, and the principles of his conduct. He fpoke with fuccefs to the National Affembly, on the 10th, 15th, 16th, 17th, 20th, and 23d of June. But our prefent intention is not to give a detail of such objects as come under the province of hiftory. We may diftinguish the political career of Sieyes into three intervals; from the opening of the States General to that of the Convention. The first dates from the day wherein he uttered thefe words:-They wish to be free; but they know not how to be just. These words efcaped him-and they were received by the ear of Paffion. Hatred and the fpirit of faction was earneftly difpofed to preserve them: and falfehood added its commentaries. Under their united efforts, that which was improperly called his influence difappeared. In the fufpieions exhibited around him, he obferved the work of calumny. His * Views of the Executive Means which are at the Difpofal of the Representa tives of France, in 1789. J Effay on Privileges. What is this Third Eftate? His determination was foon made; to neglect the remarks of folly; to profit by this mistrust, by diminishing his labours; to appear feldom in the tribune, for which, in other refpects, The found himfelf little fuited; but he continued to work ufefully in the committees, and the more fo, as he did not there meet with a kind of obftacle he found it impoffible to combat; namely, that of treachery, applauded and fupported by thofe very men who have the greateft in tereft in unmasking it. In this manner he bore a more or lefs eonfiderable fhare in the great Tabours and important questions which occupied the Affembly; though it is proper to fay, if for no other purpose than that of accuracy, that none of his plans were adopted without mutilation, and a mixture of other matter, more or lefs foreign to the object. A part of his projects and memoirs has remained behind, if it be not loft, among the papers of the cnmmittees, and by himself they are scarcely ever remembered. This compofed the fecond period of his political life, lefs active, lefs public, but often as laborious as the former, and which ended in June1791. After a certain length of time, Sieyes had reafon to fufpect the preparatives for a coalition of certain parties. They fpoke of the neceffity of a fecond chamber, in the English mode, rendered more perfect according to a French fashion, which, they faid, "ought neceffarily to be the portion of the minority of the nobleffe, because they were the effective cause of the Revolution." Already had certain members of the Affembly, far from being leaders of the intention, but acquainted with all the intrigues, made a motion to divide the legislative body into two fections; a motion admitted by many good deputies; but very different from the nobilitary project of two chambers, though calculated to facili. tate its admiffion during the heat or the wandering of debate. It became Sieyes to confider the proceeding with anxiety; Sieyes, who had first held out the diftinction of orders in a state as a political monster, and had placed among the focial principles, the unity and equality of the people, and the unity and equality of its legiflative reprefentation, He addreffed himself to various chiefs of the parties, to clear up his doubts. They had the duplicity to affure, and to fwear to him, that no with was entertained to impair or di minifh the principle of equality. He was not convinced, and therefore adopted the defign to compel them to exhibit their fentiments in more open day. He compofed, with another, a project of a declaration to be voluntarily fubfcribed, the object of which was, in fact, no more than the oath of equality decreed fifteen months before by the legislative body, fubfequent to the 10th of August 1792. It contained befides an engagement to maintain the unity and equality of the reprefentation charged to vote the law; and that in all cafes, not excepting that of the motion already made for two fections, if decreed by the Affembly. It is to be remarked, that Sieyes received, on all hands, the highest encouragement, and the moft preffing inftances to the speedy accomplishment of his defign. The writing here mentioned was fcarcely gone to prefs, before these men procured a copy. A most virulent defamatory libel was put into the hands of a dangerous ignorant man, Salles, who was charged to commence the attack, by reading it at the Jacobins. It was previously adjusted, that this was to be received with the moft yiolent applaufe. Such meafures being taken, then followed a manoeuvre of the most extraordinary kind of calumny on the one part, and grofs ignorance on the other The declaration was not yet publifh ed, turned thither no more. In its detail, as well as in the difavowals, both fucceffive and combined, of many of those who figned, and of fome others who were not in the fecret, it exhibits a mass of little vile paffions, a combination of wickedness and treachery. As to Sieyes, he was not aware of his danger. He prepared to reply. On the day after the 20th June, he had already annexed, in print, to the calumniated declaration, a narrative of the extraordinary fcene which had paffed at the Jacobins. He was about to publish this, but the general inquietude on the 21st June; the delufion of the public, fo eafily led to act upon the nearest and most ftriking objects; the great mafs of incidents and abominable attempts, fill little known, which filled that and the following days; the fmall, and almoft imperceptible number of deputies who had remained faithful and pure; and, laftly, the unfteady, fhamelefs, and utterly unprincipled reign of the famous revifing coali tion, infpired Sieyes with his ultimate determination. It was to shut himfelf up decidedly in a philofophical filence. ed, a few proofs only having been first intrusted to thofe only who had engaged to collect fignatures, when Sieyes was folemnly denounced on the 19th June, 1791, from the tribune of the Jacobins, as having formed the counter-revolutionary project, ift, Of reviving the nobility; 2d, Of inftituting two legiflative chambers; and, 3d, Of having inundated the 83 departments with a formulary for fignature for this criminal purpofe. As a proof of this, a copy of the fill yet unpublished declaration was prefented; a declaration compofed, ex profeffo, against the two fuppofed projects. But it was the fupporters of the nobility and of the two chambers who managed this denunciation, and conducted all the detail of this ftrange hoftility! It must be elpecially remarked, that the King was to take his flight the following day, in the night between the 20th and 21ft, and that the mafters of this Jacobin convulfion were accomplices in that act. Time, which has unveiled the whole of this manœuvre, has equally discovered the intention of the coalitionary leaders. They fuppofed they could much more effectually infure the fuccefs of their odious defigns, if they could facrifice Sieyes, or at leaft render him fo far fufpected, that it fhould be impoffible for him to gain attention at the first eclat of this meditated flight; for they were well acquainted with his opinion of the abfurdity of acknowledging, as a reprefentative, any one who fhould not have been freely elected by the body reprefented. This accounts for the precipitation in denouncing a work not yet publifhed, and the page of the libel, where too early mention is made of fending it At the firft formation of the deinto the departments. This anec- partment of Paris, he was elected dote, the developement of which to adminiftrator and member of the dithe Jacobins, in the midst of ftudied rectory. The ketch of the useful rage, lafted three days, was fo dif- operations he performed in this fitugufting to the few impartial honeft ation is no part of the object of this men of that fociety, that they rewriting, any more than the account Ed. Mog. Jan. 1796. F Here ended, as we have already remarked, the fecond period of the career of Sieyes. From this moment, during the whole fitting of the legislative af fembly till the opening of the convention, he remained a complete ftranger to all the political action. This is the third interval, and prefents nothing remarkable, except his peaceable contempt for the fuppofitions of which he has not ceafed to be the object. But to return to the facts: of of his fpeeches or writings in the conftituent affembly. It was alfo propofed to make him bishop of Paris. He faw that he was urged to this place by enemies as well as friends: but his opinions alone made it his duty not to accept it. At the moment of election, he wrote to the electoral body, to acquaint them with his intended refufal. The conftituent affembly had fcarce ly clofed its fittings, before he refigned his place in the department, and retired into the country, about a league from Paris. He had been on a vifit to a friend, at the diflance of more than fixty leagues from Paris, and was fill there when he heard of the events of the 10th of Auguft. This great event gave him no furprize. It was naturally to be expected. He wrote to Paris, that if the infurrection of the 14th of July was the revolution of the French, that of the ioth of Auguft might be called the revolution of the patriots; but, at the fame time, he asked, whether the legiflative body had feized the government, and propofed to direct the fame withbut participation, till the new convention fhould meet? The events at the end of Auguft and beginning of September prove that the legislative body wanted ftrength. It durft not feize the reins of government." The hopes of Sieyes for the public welfare had been re-animated, though, in truth, they ought to have been de. preffed. He waited in expectation of the early fittings of the Convention, and propofed to retreat, during the winter, to a place ftill more remote than his refidence at that time. In the midst of these reflections, he learned that he had been chofen deputy to the Convention by three Departments. This was without his knowledge, for he had no perfonal acquaintance in either of the three. Neither his difpofition nor his inclination could lead him to a poft in which he no longer confidered himfelfas enabled to ferve his country. But the circumftances of the times did not admit of a refufal, which would furely have been mifinterpreted. He therefore flowly proceeded to Paris, where he arrived, and attended the Convention the fame day, Sep. 21ft. From the objects, from the figures, which on all fides claimed his attention and aftonishment, as well as from the difcourfes he heard, he might, without dereliction of mind, have thought himself tranfported by magic to an unknown country at the extremity of the earth. He found himself a ftranger to all he met, and particularly fo to the men in power, with whom his unhappy fate feemed to command him to become intimate. He applied to obfervation, while they urged the enterprize they had formed to vanquish and deftroy the Convention already degraded by their prefence. Several times he endeavoured to be useful otherwife than by fimple affiduity at the fittings.-Among his perfectly ineffectual attempts, we may quote his report of the 13th of January 1793, upon the provifionary organization of the administration of war, a report at first received with the filence of inquifitive curiofity, afterwards calumniated and ridiculed, and at laft rejected by all parties. He laboured to organize a new establishment for public inftruction; which must not be confounded with the incurable madness of fixing dogmatically, and legislatively decreeing the materials of inftruction. His plan was at the time it appeared the shorteft, and is ftill the moft complete of any which have been prefented. The Committee of Inftruction, after having adopted, charged one of its members, to whom the Affembly was well difpofed, to report the fame from the tribune. It was not ill received. The Con- hand, and without difcuffion. The vention adjourned the difcuffion to a Committee of Public Safety, at length, near day. The reporter, in confor- did not fail to exclude Sieyes from mity to the prudence of the times, the Committee of Public instruction, thought proper previoufly to fubmit where he had been placed by a fpeit to the affembly called La Reunion; cial decree of the Convention. where, after fome flight amendments, there remained no difference of opinion, excepting on the manner of paffing it, whether in toto, or article by article. The following day, or the next day but one, the name of Sieyes was mentioned, together with the plan of inftruction. It was earneftly demanded in certain groupes, whether Sieyes, was the author; and, upon the affirmative anfwer, the difpofitions were immediately changed. They pretended to miftruft his views and intentions. The plan was perufed, and re-perufed, with a ridiculous earneftness, not unlike that of the monkey inspecting a looking-glafs. By repeated examination, affisted by the keennefs of fufpicion, doubts and difficulties were first raised, and foon afterwards it became an indubitable fact, that this sketch contained a compleat fyftem of counter-revolution and federalism. The reporter was feverely taken to talk, for having dared to prefent in the tribune any thing which had not been written by a member of the Mountain. It was confidered in the fame light as if he had been entrapped. The affair foon became of importance; was treated in a revolutionary way; thofe who fought for an opportunity, imagined they had found it; the word order is given; the new patriots, on the 30th of June, ran to hear a truly delirious oration of Haffenfratz against Sieyes. The journals repeat the declamation, but refufe to admit the plan itself. The former day, upon the formal demand of Robespierre, in the Convention, this project was rejected with a high it At this time obftacles of another nature, and truly infurmountable, came forward *. Sieyes, more infulated than ever, found it neceffary to confine himself, with the utmoit fritnefs, to the line of his duty. His fortune, at the commencement of the Revolution, confifted in benefices and penfions to the amount of feven or eight thousand livres annually; in three small portions of annuities on the Hotel de Ville at Paris, making together the fum of eight hundred and forty livres; and, laftly, in various fums lent on fecurity, which comprehended his patrimony, and favings for nine or ten years. The total, at that time, amounted to the principal sum of forty-fix or forty-feven thoufand livres. The article of favings had for its motive the defign of retiring to the United States of America, as foon as he could form a capital fufficient and tranfportable; its bafis confifted in the fimplicity of his manner of living, joined to the facility of entering into no expence during two-thirds of the year, which he paffed in the country with his Bishop, at a few leagues distance from Chartres. After the decrees which put the property of ecclefiaftics into the hands of the nation, Sieyes concluded that he should foon be reduced to his own private and independent property. He had at that time renounced the defign of quitting his country. He therefore collected all the portions of his perfonal capital, in order to found upon it his future title to independence, by fecuring to himself at leaft the ftrict neceffaries of life. With this view he purchafed, of one of the F 2 *Jufque datum Sceleri. Lucian.' molt |