What does it demand?
To be something.' There were in these words three grave errors.

In the course of the regimen anterior to 1789, so far was the third estate from being nothing that it had every day become greater and stronger.

What was demanded for it in 1789 by M.Sieyes and his friends was not that it should become something, but that it should be everything.

It was to desire what was beyond its right and its might; the Revolution, which was its victory, itself proved this.

Whatever may have been the weaknesses and the faults of its adversaries, the third estate had to struggle terribly to vanquish them, and the struggle was so violent and so obstinate that the third estate was shattered to pieces in it and paid right dearly for its triumph.