<P> What Is the Third Estate ? ( French : Qu'est - ce que le tiers - état ? ) is a political pamphlet written in January 1789 , shortly before the outbreak of the French Revolution , by the French thinker and clergyman Abbé Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès ( 1748 -- 1836 ) . The pamphlet was Sieyès ' response to finance minister Jacques Necker 's invitation for writers to state how they thought the Estates - General should be organized . </P>
who wrote the influential pamphlet what is the third estate
French thinker and clergyman Abbé Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès