Emmanuel Joseph Sievès

Sievès, Emmanuel Joseph (1748–1836), French revolutionary, legislator, and author. He participated in drafting such basic documents of the French revolution as the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen and the Constitution (1791). His pamphlet What is the Third Estate? (1789) helped inspire the revolution. He served in various legislative bodies throughout the changing post-revolutionary governments, and he ended his life as an exile in Brussels, Belgium, following the Bourbon restoration in France.

See also: French Revolution.