<P> What Is the Third Estate? (French: Qu'est - ce que le tiers - état?) is a political pamphlet written in January 1789, shortly before the outbreak of the French Revolution, by the French thinker and clergyman Abbé Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès (1748--1836). The pamphlet was Sieyès' response to finance minister Jacques Necker's invitation for writers to state how they thought the Estates - General should be organized . </P> <P> In the pamphlet, Sieyès argues that the third estate--the common people of France--constituted a complete nation within itself and had no need of the "dead weight" of the two other orders, the first and second estates of the clergy and aristocracy . Sieyès stated that the people wanted genuine representatives in the Estates - General, equal representation to the other two orders taken together, and votes taken by heads and not by orders . These ideas came to have an immense influence on the course of the French Revolution . </P>

Who wrote the influential pamphlet what is the third estate