third estate found itself
face to face with a twofold hostility: that of its adversaries of the old
regimen and that of absolute democracy, which, in its turn, claimed to be
everything. Excessive pretension entails unmanageable opposition, and
excites unbridled ambition. What there was in the words of Abbe Sieyes,
in 1789, was not the truth as it is in history; it was a lying programme
of revolution. Taking the history of France in its totality and in all
its phases, the third estate has been the most active and most decisive
element in French civilization. If we follow it in its relations with
the general government of the country, we see it first of all allied
during six centuries with the kingship, struggling pauselessly against
the feudal aristocracy, and giving the prevalence in place of that to a
central and unique power, pure monarchy to wit, closely approximating,
though with certain often-repeated but vain reservations, to absolute
monarchy. But, so soon as it has gained this victory and accomplished
this revolution, the third estate pursues another: it attacks this unique
power which it had contributed so much to establish, and it undertakes
the task of changing pure monarchy into constitutional monarchy. Under
whatever aspect we consider it in its two great and so very different
enterprises, whether we study the progressive formation of French society
itself or that of its government, the third estate is the most powerful
and the most persistent of the forces which have had influence over
French civilization. Not only is this fact novel, but it has for France
quite a special interest; for, to make use of an expression which is much
abused in our day, it is a fact eminently French, essentially national.
Nowhere has burgessdom had a destiny so vast, so fertile as that which
has fallen to it in France. There have been commons all over Europe, in
Italy, in Spain, in Germany, in England, as well as in France. Not only
have there been commons everywhere, but the commons in France are not
those which, _qua_ commons, under that name and in the middle ages, have
played the greatest part and held the highest place in history. The
Italian commons begot glorious republics. The German commons became free
towns, sovereign towns, which have their own special history, and
exercised throughout the general history of Germany a great deal of
influence. The commons of England allied themselves with a portion of
the Eng