In the States-General sometimes, and in the Provincial Estates almost always, the representation of the People is considered as inherent in the holder of certain offices. These bogus deputies have not even been always freely elected by the People. Who have been its so-called “Representatives”? Men who have been raised to the nobility or have received temporary privileges. Let us see what part it plays in the States-General. To avoid being completely crushed, what must the unlucky nonprivileged person do? He has to attach himself by all kinds of contemptible actions to some magnate he prostitutes his principles and human dignity for the possibility of claiming, in his need, the protection of a somebodyīut we are less concerned in this book with the civil rights of the Third Estate than with its relationship to the constitution. It is indisputably only too true that in France a man who is protected only by the common laws is a nobody whoever is totally unprivileged must submit to every form of contempt, insult and humiliation. Anybody who holds a legal privilege of any kind deserts the common order, stands as an exception to the common laws and, consequently, does not belong to the Third Estate. By Third Estate is meant all the citizens who belong to the common order. If the aristocrats try to repress the People at the expense of that very freedom of which they prove themselves unworthy, the Third Estate will dare challenge their right. Nothing will go well without the Third Estate everything would go considerably better without the two others. What would it be without the privileged order? It would be all but free and flourishing. What then is the Third Estate? All but an " all" that is fettered and oppressed. If the privileged order were removed, the nation would not be something less but something more. Who is bold enough to maintain that the Third Estate does not contain within itself everything needful to constitute a complete nation? It is like a strong and robust man with one arm still in chains.
It suffices to have made the point that the so-called usefulness of a privileged order to the public service is a fallacy that, without help from this order, all the arduous tasks in the service are performed by the Third Estate that without this order the higher posts could be infinitely better filled that they ought to be the natural prize and reward of recognized ability and service and that if the privileged have succeeded in usurping all well-paid and honorific posts, this is both a hateful iniquity towards the generality of citizens and an act of treason to the commonwealth. "No matter how useful you are," they said, "no matter how able you are, you can go so far and no further. Nevertheless, the privileged have dared to preclude the Third Estate. Are we to give them credit for this? We could do so only if the Third Estate was unable or unwilling to fill these posts. Only the well paid and honorific posts are filled by members of the privileged order. It needs no detailed analysis to show that the Third Estate everywhere constitutes nineteen twentieths of them, except that it is loaded with all the really arduous work, all the tasks which the privileged order refuses to perform. Public services can also, at present, be divided into four known categories, the army, the law, the Church and the bureaucracy. Such are the activities which support society. This fourth class embraces all sorts of occupations, from the most distinguished liberal and scientific professions to the lowest of menial tasks. society also requires a vast number of special activities and of services directly useful or pleasant to the person. Besides these three classes of useful and industrious citizens.Such is the function of the third class of persons. Between production and consumption, as also between the various stages of production, a variety of intermediary agents intervene, to help producers as well as consumers these are the dealers and the merchants.Such are the activities of the second class of persons In this way human industry manages to improve the gifts of nature and the value of the raw material may be multiplied twice, or ten-fold, or a hundred-fold. through the incorporation of varying amounts of labors. Between the initial sale of goods and the moment when they reach the consumer or user, goods acquire an increased value.Since land and water provide the basic materials for human needs, the first class, in logical order, includes all the families connected with work on the land.These private activities can all be comprised within four classes of persons: What does a nation require to survive and prosper? It needs private activities and public services.
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