Western Civilizations II: Historical Document Analysis
794 Words4 Pages
Morgan Plumbar
Professor Richard Frankel
History 102: Western Civilizations II, Historical Document Analysis Paper
12 November 2015
Is the 1% really more important than the other 99%? In France during the late 1700s, inequality was an issue that everyone went through and it posed many internal problems within the government in France as well as within the political system and in society in general. People in France were separated into different estates and within each estate, each had their own internal issues about inequality and injustice. One of the major issues during the late 1700s, was the issue about the nobility in the Third Estate. Within the Third Estate, the people of the nobility were the only people who possessed power. This…show more content… Because the other two estates were not as aware of the injustices, Abbe Sieyes decided to write a pamphlet in 1789, about the injustices that were taking place within the Third Estate, entitling his pamphlet, “What Is the Third Estate” (Sieyes, p 63). “What Is the Third Estate,” was basically written to give the public a closer look into what exactly was going on in the Third Estate. Sieyes basically talks about how everyone in the Third Estate should be equal and how nothing would be equal until the nobility was stripped of their power. During this time, many things were happening in France that were of importance. This was around the time when King Louis XVI fled France and left the citizens to run France by themselves. This posed a serious problem because only the top 1% of the country had power and the only people who made up the top 1% were the people who were a part of the clergy and the nobility. With this going on, all of the citizens who were not part of the 1% were getting a firsthand glimpse at just how unfair society was. After this happened, Sieyes and many others believed that removing the nobility’s power