Sieyès,as well as constitutionalists of the post-revolutionary period,reconstructed the concept and history of the Third Estate in terms of its origins,homogeneity,and social and political status and role.Those constitutionalists affirmed that the Third Estate was a social product of the conquest of Gaul by the Franks.But they gradually abandoned the perspective of the racial antagonism and defined the Third Estate from a class perspective,constructing a generally homogeneous French nation and providing a political basis for the construction of a representative government.In their opinion,the Third Estate had the conditions and abilities to complete the historical mission of integrating the estates and their internal classes into a French nation.However,they emphasised that the true political freedom and democracy could be merely achieved within the monarchical framework.By reconstructing the concept and history of the Third Estate,they tried to respond to the needs of the political innovation and illustrate the legitimacy of a constitutional monarchy.Nevertheless,those constitutionalists of the post-revolutionary period had their limitations due to their bourgeois position,which guided them to insist on the homogeneity of the Third Estate.Moreover,they refused to accept that bourgeoisie and proletarian within the Third Estate have evolved into two diametrically opposing classes.
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