What has the Third Estate hitherto been? Nothing. It is but too true that you are nothing in France if you have only the protection of the common law. Without some privilege or other, you must make up your mind to suffer contempt, contumely, and all sorts of vexation. The unfortunate person who has no privileges of his own can only attach himself to some great man, by all sorts of meanness, and thus get the chance, on occasion, to demand the assistance of _somebody_. What does the Third Estate ask? To become something in the state. And in truth the people asks but little. It wants true representatives in the Estates, taken from its own order, able to interpret its wishes, and defend its interests. But what would it gain by taking part in the Estates General, if its own side were not to prevail there? It must, therefore, have an influence at least equal to that of the privileged orders; it must have half the representatives. This equality would be illusory if the chambers voted separately; therefore, the voting must be by heads. Can the Third Estate ask for less than this? And is it not clear that if its influence is less than that of the privileged orders combined, there is no hope of its emerging from its political nullity and becoming something? Sieyes goes on to argue that the Third Estate should be allowed to choose its representatives only from its own body. He has persuaded himself, by what seems to be a process of mental juggling, that men of one order cannot be truly represented by men of another. Suppose, he says, that France is at war with England, and that hostilities are conducted on our side by a Directory composed of national representatives. In that case, I ask, would any province be permitted, in the name of freedom, to choose for its delegates to the Directory the members of the English ministry? Surely the privileged classes show themselves no less hostile to the common order of people, than the English to the French in time of war. Three further questions are stated by Sieyes. (4.) What the ministers have attempted and what the privileged classes propose in favor of the Third Estate? (5.) What should have been done? (6.) What is still to be done? Under the fourth head, Sieyes considers the Provincial Assemblies recently established, and the Assembly of Notables, both of which he considers entirely incapable of doing good, because they are composed of privileged persons. He scorns the proposal of the nobility to pay a fair share of the taxes, being unwilling to accept as a favor what he wishes to take as a right. He fears that the Commons will be content with too little and will not sweep away all privilege. He attacks the English Constitution, which the liberal nobles of France were in the habit of setting up as a model, saying that it is not good in itself, but only as a prodigious system of props and makeshifts against disorder. The right of trial by jury he considers its best feature.