Ludovico Sforza

Ludovico Sforza

Duke of Milan

Ludovico Maria Sforza (also known as Ludovico il Moro;27 July 1452 – 27 May 1508), was Duke of Milan from 1494 until 1499, following the death of his nephew Gian Galeazzo Sforza. A member of the Sforza family, he was the second son of Francesco I Sforza. He was famed as a patron of Leonardo da Vinci and other artists, and presided over the final and most productive stage of the Milanese Renaissance. He is probably best known as the man who commissioned The Last Supper.

Early life

Ludovico Sforza was born on July 27, 1452, at Vigevano, in what is now Lombardy. He was the second son of Francesco I Sforza and Bianca Maria Visconti and, as such, was not expected to become ruler of Milan. Nevertheless, his mother, Bianca, prudently saw to it that his education was not restricted to the classical languages. Under the tutelage of the humanist Francesco Filelfo, Ludovico received instruction in the beauties of painting, sculpture, and letters, but he was also taught the methods of government and warfare. He later helped Leonardo paint with pastels.

Regent of Milan

When their father Francesco died in 1466 (the Last Supper was painted next to his burial place in Santa Maria delle Grazie), he was succeeded by the dissolute Galeazzo Maria, Ludovico's older brother. Galeazzo Maria ruled until his assassination in 1476, leaving his throne to his seven-year-old son, Gian Galeazzo Sforza, Ludovico's nephew. A bitter struggle for the regency with the boy's mother, Bona of Savoy, followed; Ludovico emerged as victor in 1481 and seized control of the government of Milan, despite attempts to keep him out of power. For the next 13 years he controlled Milan as regent while simultaneously empowered, since 1479, as Duke of Bari.

Ludovico Sforza in a portrait by Giovanni Ambrogio de Predis.

Marriage and private life

In January 1491, he married Ercole I d'Este's youngest daughter Beatrice d'Este (1475–1497) in a double Sforza-Este marriage, while Beatrice's brother, Alfonso d'Este, married Anna Sforza, Ludovico's niece. Leonardo da Vinci orchestrated the wedding celebration. Beatrice and Alfonso’s sister, Isabella d'Este (1474–1539) was married to Francesco II Gonzaga, Marquess of Mantua.

The 15-year-old princess quickly charmed the Milanese court with her joy in life, her laughter, and even her extravagance. She helped to make the Sforza castle a center of sumptuous festivals and balls and she loved entertaining philosophers, poets, diplomats, and soldiers. Beatrice had good taste, and it is said that under her prompting her husband's patronage of artists became more selective and the likes of Leonardo da Vinci and Donato Bramante were employed at the court. She would become the mother of Maximilian Sforza and Francesco II Sforza, future Dukes of Milan.

Prior to and throughout the duration of his marriage, Ludovico is known to have had mistresses, although it is thought that he kept only one mistress at a time. Bernardina de Corradis was an early mistress who bore him a daughter, Bianca Giovanna {1483-1496}. The child was legitimized and later married to Galeazzo Sanseverino in 1496. Cecilia Gallerani, believed to be a favourite, gave birth to a son named Cesare on 3 May 1491, in the same year in which he married Beatrice d'Este.

Gallerani is identified as the subject of Leonardo da Vinci's Lady with an Ermine – the ermine was the heraldic animal of Ludovico il Moro.

 Another mistress was Lucrezia Crivelli, who bore him another illegitimate son, Giovanni Paolo, born in the year of Beatrice's death. He was a condottiero. Ludovico also fathered a third illegitimate son, called Sforza, who was born around 1484 and died suddenly in 1487; the boy's mother is unknown.

Ascension as Duke of Milan and the Italian Wars

In 1494, the new king of Naples, Alfonso, allied himself with Pope Alexander VI, posing a threat to Milan. Ludovico decided to fend him off using France, then ruled by the powerful Charles VIII, as his ally. 

He permitted the French troops to pass through Milan so they might attack Naples. However, Charles's ambition was not satisfied with Naples, and he subsequently laid claim to Milan itself. Bitterly regretting his decision, Ludovico then entered an alliance with Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor, by offering him in marriage his niece Bianca Sforza and receiving, in return, imperial investiture of the duchy and joining the league against France.

Gian Galeazzo, his nephew, died under suspicious conditions in 1494, and the throne of Milan fell to Ludovico, who hastened to assume the ducal title and received the ducal crown from the Milanese nobles on 22 October. But by then, his luck seemed to have run out. On 3 January 1497, as the result of a difficult childbirth, Beatrice, his wife, died.

 Ludovico was inconsolable, and the entire court was shrouded in gloom. Ludovico had also hoped by involving the French, and the Holy Roman Emperor, Maximilian I, in Italian politics, he could manipulate the two and reap the rewards himself, and was thus responsible for starting the Italian Wars. At first, Ludovico defeated the French at the Battle of Fornovo in 1495 (making weapons from 80 tons of bronze originally intended for Leonardo da Vinci's equestrian statue of the duke). However, with the death of Charles, the French throne was inherited by his cousin, Louis of Orléans, who became Louis XII of France. The new king had a hereditary claim to Milan, as his paternal grandmother was Valentina Visconti, daughter of Giangaleazzo Visconti, the first Duke of Milan. Hence in 1498, he descended upon Milan. As none of the other Italian states would help the ruler who had invited the French into Italy four years earlier, Louis was successful in driving out Ludovico from Milan. Ludovico managed to escape the French armies and, in 1499, sought help from Maximilian.

Ludovico returned with an army of mercenaries and re-entered Milan in February 1500. Two months later, Louis XII laid siege to the city of Novara, where Ludovico was based. The armies of both sides included Swiss mercenaries. The Swiss did not want to fight each other and chose to leave Novara. Ludovico was handed over to the French in April 1500. Deprived of all the amenities of life, he spent his last years in the underground dungeon at Loches, where he died on 17 May 1508.

 The Swiss later executed a soldier from Uri, called Hans Turmann, who had, they claimed, betrayed his employer for money.

The Swiss later restored the duchy of Milan to Ludovico's son, Maximilian Sforza. His other son, Francesco II, also held the Duchy of Milan for a short period. Francesco II died in 1535, sparking the Italian War of 1535, as a result of which Milan passed to the Spanish Empire.

The memory of Ludovico was clouded for centuries by Niccolò Machiavelli’s accusation that he “invited” Charles VIII to invade Italy, paving the way for subsequent foreign domination. The charge was perpetuated by later historians who espoused the ideal of national independence. More recent historians, however, placing the figure of Ludovico in its Renaissance setting, have reevaluated his merits as a ruler and given a more equitable assessment of his achievement.

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Henry VIII of England

On This day in History - 29 June 1491 

King Henry VIII - Born

Henry VIII (28 June 1491 – 28 January 1547) was King of England from 21 April 1509 until his death. He was Lord, and later assumed the Kingship, of Ireland, and continued the nominal claim by English monarchs to the Kingdom of France. Henry was the second monarch of the Tudor dynasty, succeeding his father, Henry VII.

Besides his six marriages, Henry VIII is known for his role in the separation of the Church of England from the Roman Catholic Church. His disagreements with the Pope led to his separation of the Church of England from papal authority, with himself, as king, as the Supreme Head of the Church of England and to the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Because his principal dispute was with papal authority, rather than with doctrinal matters, he remained a believer in core Catholic theological teachings despite his excommunication from the Roman Catholic Church.

 Henry oversaw the legal union of England and Wales with the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. He is also well known for a long personal rivalry with both Francis I of France and the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, his contemporaries with whom he frequently warred.

Domestically, Henry is known for his radical changes to the English Constitution, ushering in the theory of the divine right of kings to England. Besides asserting the sovereign's supremacy over the Church of England, thus initiating the English Reformation, he greatly expanded royal power. Charges of treason and heresy were commonly used to quash dissent, and those accused were often executed without a formal trial, by means of bills of attainder. He achieved many of his political aims through the work of his chief ministers, some of whom were banished or executed when they fell out of his favour. Figures such as Thomas Wolsey, Thomas More, Thomas Cromwell, Richard Rich, and Thomas Cranmer figured prominently in Henry's administration. An extravagant spender, he used the proceeds from the Dissolution of the Monasteries and acts of the Reformation Parliament to convert to royal revenue money formerly paid to Rome. Despite the influx of money from these sources, Henry was continually on the verge of financial ruin, due to his personal extravagance, as well as his numerous costly continental wars.

His contemporaries considered Henry in his prime to be an attractive, educated and accomplished king, and he has been described as "one of the most charismatic rulers to sit on the English throne". Besides ruling with considerable power, he was also an author and composer. His desire to provide England with a male heir – which stemmed partly from personal vanity and partly from his belief that a daughter would be unable to consolidate Tudor power and maintain the fragile peace that existed following the Wars of the Roses^[3] – led to the two things for which Henry is most remembered: his six marriages and his break with the Pope (who would not allow an annulment of Henry's first marriage) and the Roman Catholic Church, leading to the English Reformation. Henry became severely obese and his health suffered, contributing to his death in 1547. He is frequently characterised in his later life as a lustful, egotistical, harsh, and insecure king. He was succeeded by his son Edward VI.

Eighteen-year-old Henry VIII after his coronation in 1509

Early Years

Born 28 June 1491 at Greenwich Palace, Henry Tudor was the third child and second son of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York. Of the young Henry's six siblings, only three – Arthur, Prince of Wales; Margaret; and Mary – survived infancy. He was baptised by Richard Fox, the Bishop of Exeter, at a church of the Observant Franciscans close to the palace. In 1493, at the age of two, Henry was appointed Constable of Dover Castle and Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports.

 He was subsequently appointed Earl Marshal of England and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland at age three, and was inducted into the Order of the Bath soon after. The day after the ceremony he was created Duke of York and a month or so later made Warden of the Scottish Marches. In May 1495, he was appointed to the Order of the Garter. Henry was given a first-rate education from leading tutors, becoming fluent in Latin and French, and learning at least some Italian.

 Not much is known about his early life – save for his appointments – because he was not expected to become king. In November 1501, Henry also played a considerable part in the ceremonies surrounding the marriage of his brother, Prince Arthur, to Catherine of Aragon, the youngest surviving child of King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Queen Isabella I of Castile.As Duke of York, Henry used the arms of his father as king, differenced by a label of three points ermine.

In 1502, Arthur died at the age of 15, after 20 weeks of marriage to Catherine.

 Arthur's death thrust all his duties upon his younger brother, the 10-year-old Henry. After a little debate, Henry became the new Duke of Cornwall in October 1502, and the new Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester in February 1503. Henry VII gave the boy few tasks. Young Henry was strictly supervised and did not appear in public. As a result, the young Henry would later ascend the throne "untrained in the exacting art of kingship."

Henry VII renewed his efforts to seal a marital alliance between England and Spain, by offering his second son in marriage to Arthur's widow Catherine.

 Both Isabella and Henry VII were keen on the idea, which had arisen very shortly after Arthur's death. On 23 June 1503, a treaty was signed for their marriage, and they were betrothed two days later. A papal dispensation was only needed for the "impediment of public honesty" if the marriage had not been consummated as Catherine and her duenna claimed, but Henry VII and the Spanish ambassador set out instead to obtain a dispensation for "affinity", which took account of the possibility of consummation. The young Henry's age, only eleven, prevented cohabitation. Isabella's death in 1504, and the ensuing problems of succession in Castile, complicated matters. Her father preferred her to stay in England, but Henry VII's relations with Ferdinand had deteriorated. Catherine was therefore left in limbo for some time, culminating in Prince Henry's rejection of the marriage as soon he was able, at the age of 14. Ferdinand's solution was to make his daughter ambassador, allowing her to stay in England indefinitely.

 Devout, she began to believe that it was God's will that she marry the prince despite his opposition.

An Illumination from a contemporary manuscript thought to depict Henry mourning the loss of his mother (1503). His sisters are also pictured.

The meeting of Francis I and Henry VIII at the Field of the Cloth of Gold in 1520

Early Reign

Henry VII died on 21 April 1509, and the young Henry succeeded him as king. Soon after his father's burial on 10 May, Henry suddenly declared that he would indeed marry Catherine, leaving unresolved issues concerning the papal dispensation and a missing part of the marriage portion. The new king maintained that it had been his father's dying wish that he marry Catherine.

Whether or not this was true, it was certainly convenient. Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I had been attempting to marry his granddaughter (and Catherine's niece) Eleanor to Henry; she had now been jilted. Henry's wedding to Catherine was kept low-key and was held at the friar's church in Greenwich on 11 June 1509. On 23 June 1509, Henry led Catherine from the Tower of London to Westminster Abbey for their coronation, which took place the following day. It was a grand affair: the king's passage was lined with tapestries and laid with fine cloth. Following the ceremony, there was a grand banquet in Westminster Hall.

 As Catherine wrote to her father, "our time is spent in continuous festival".

Two days after Henry's coronation, he arrested his father's two most unpopular ministers, Sir Richard Empson and Edmund Dudley. They were charged with high treason and were executed in 1510. Historian Ian Crofton has maintained that such executions would become Henry's primary tactic for dealing with those who stood in his way; the two executions were certainly not the last.

 Henry also returned to the public some of the money supposedly extorted by the two ministers. By contrast, Henry's view of the House of York – potential rival claimants for the throne – was more moderate than his father's had been. Several who had been imprisoned by his father, including the Marquess of Dorset, were pardoned. Others (most notably Edmund de la Pole) went unreconciled; de la Pole was eventually beheaded in 1513, an execution prompted by his brother Richard siding against the king.

Soon after, Catherine conceived, but the child, a girl, was stillborn on 31 January 1510. About four months later, Catherine again became pregnant. On New Year's Day 1511, the child – Henry – was born. After the grief of losing their first child, the couple were pleased to have a boy and there were festivities to celebrate, including a jousting tournament. However, the child died seven weeks later.

 Catherine miscarried again in 1514, but gave birth in February 1516 to a girl, Mary. Relations between Henry and Catherine had been strained, but they eased slightly after Mary's birth, and there is little to suggest the marriage was anything but "unusually good" in the period.

During this period, Henry had mistresses. It was revealed in 1510 that Henry had been conducting an affair with one of the sisters of Edward Stafford, 3rd Duke of Buckingham, either Elizabeth or Anne Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon.

 The most significant mistress for about three years, starting in 1516, was Elizabeth Blount.Blount is one of only two completely undisputed mistresses, few for a virile young king. Exactly how many Henry had is disputed: David Loades believes Henry had mistresses "only to a very limited extent", whilst Alison Weir believes there were numerous other affairs. Catherine did not protest, and in 1518 fell pregnant again with another girl, who was also stillborn.^[ Blount gave birth in June 1519 to Henry's illegitimate son, Henry FitzRoy. The young boy was made Duke of Richmond in June 1525 in what some thought was one step on the path to his eventual legitimisation. In 1533, FitzRoy married Mary Howard, but died childless three years later. At the time of Richmond's death in June 1536, Parliament was enacting the Second Succession Act, which could have allowed him to become king.

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Godfrey IV, Duke of Lower Lorraine

  Godfrey IV, Duke of Lower Lorraine

Godfrey the Hunchback

Godfrey IV (died 26 or 27 February 1076), known as the Hunchback, was a son of Godfrey the Bearded, whom he succeeded as Duke of Lower Lorraine in 1069. His mother was Doda and his sister was Ida.

In the year of his succession, he married Margravine Matilda of Tuscany, daughter of his stepmother Beatrice of Bar, and thus became margrave of Tuscany. Godfrey and Matilda had only one child, Beatrice, who was born in 1071 and died the same year. From 1071 on, Godfrey lived apart from his wife. The two spouses were on opposite sides in the Investiture Controversy: Matilda was a partisan of Pope Gregory VII and Godfrey of Emperor Henry IV.

He warred on Henry's behalf against Magnus, Duke of Saxony, in 1075 and on that of the bishop of Utrecht in 1076 against Dirk V of Holland and Robert I of Flanders. He was assassinated in Vlaardingen while "answering the call of nature".^[1] Despite Matilda's opposition he nominated his nephew Godfrey of Bouillon to succeed him, but the emperor instead appointed his own son, Conrad. Godfrey of Bouillon succeeded eventually in 1087 and gained fame on the First Crusade.

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Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès

Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès[a] (3 May 1748 – 20 June 1836), most commonly known as the Abbé Sieyès (French: [sjejɛs]), was a French Roman Catholic abbé, clergyman and political writer. He was one of the chief political theorists of the French Revolution, and also played a prominent role in the French Consulate and First French Empire. His 1789 pamphlet What is the Third Estate? became the de facto manifesto of the Revolution, helping to transform the Estates-General into the National Assembly in June 1789. In 1799, he was among the instigators of the coup d'état of 18 Brumaire (9 November), which brought Napoleon Bonaparte to power. He also coined the term "sociologie" in an unpublished manuscript, and made significant theoretical contributions to the nascent social sciences.

Early life

Sieyès was born on 3 May 1748 as the fifth child of Honoré and Annabelle Sieyès in the town of Fréjus in southern France. Sieyès' father was a local tax collector who made a humble income, and while the family had some noble blood, they were commoners. Sieyès' first education came by way of tutors and of the Jesuits. He also spent some time at the collège of the Doctrinaires of Draguignan. Sieyès originally wanted to join the military and become a soldier, but his frail health, combined with his parents' piety, led him instead to pursue a religious career. The vicar-general of Fréjus offered aid to Sieyès, because he felt he was obliged to his father.

Education

Sieyès spent ten years at the seminary of Saint-Sulpice in Paris. There, he studied theology and engineering to prepare himself to enter the priesthood. He quickly gained a reputation at the school for his aptitude and interest in the sciences, combined with his obsession over the "new philosophic principles" and dislike for conventional theology. Sieyès was educated for priesthood in the Catholic Church at the Sorbonne. While there, he became influenced by the teachings of John Locke, Condillac, Quesnay, Mirabeau, Turgot, the Encyclopédistes, and other Enlightenment political thinkers, all in preference to theology. In 1770, he obtained his first theology diploma, ranking at the bottom of the list of passing candidates – a reflection of his antipathy toward his religious education. In 1772, he was ordained as a priest, and two years later he obtained his theology license.

Despite Sieyès' embrace of Enlightenment thinking, he was ordained to the priesthood in 1773. In spite of this, he was not hired immediately. He spent this time researching philosophy and developing music until about a year later in October 1774 when, as the result of demands by powerful friends, he was promised a canonry in Brittany. Unfortunately for Sieyès, this canonry went into effect only when the preceding holder died. At the end of 1775, Sieyès acquired his first real position as secretary to the bishop of Tréguier where he spent two years as deputy of the diocese. It is here that he sat in the Estates of Brittany and became disgusted with the immense power the privileged classes held. In 1780, the bishop of Tréguier was transferred to the bishopric of Chartres. He became aware of how easy it was for nobles to advance in ecclesiastical offices compared to commoners. Sieyès was an ambitious man; therefore, he resented the privileges granted to the nobles within the Church system and thought the patronage system was a humiliation for commoners. Sieyès accompanied him there as his vicar general where he eventually became a canon of the cathedral and chancellor of the diocese of Chartres.

While remaining in ecclesiastical offices, Sieyès maintained a religious cynicism at odds with his position. By the time he took his orders to enter priesthood, Sieyès had "freed himself from all superstitious sentiments and ideas." Even when corresponding with his deeply religious father, Sieyès showed a severe lack of piety for the man in charge of the diocese of Chartres. It is theorised that Sieyès accepted a religious career not because he had any sort of strong religious inclination, but because he considered it the only means to advance his career as a political writer.

What Is the Third Estate.

In 1788, Louis XVI of France proposed the convocation of the Estates-General of France after an interval of more than a century and a half. This proposal, and Jacques Necker's invitation to French writers to state their views as to the organization of the Estates, enabled Sieyès to publish his celebrated January 1789 pamphlet, Qu’est-ce que le tiers-état? (What Is the Third Estate?) He begins his answer:

"What is the Third Estate? Everything. What has it been hitherto in the political order? Nothing. What does it desire to be? Something."

This phrase, which was to remain famous, is said to have been inspired by Nicolas Chamfort.^{[citation needed]} The pamphlet was very successful, and its author, despite his clerical vocation (which made him part of the First Estate), was elected as the last (the twentieth) of the deputies to the Third Estate from Paris to the Estates-General. He played his main role in the opening years of the Revolution, drafting the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, expanding on the theories of national sovereignty, popular sovereignty, and representation implied in his pamphlet, with a distinction between active and passive citizens that justified suffrage limited to male owners of property.

Sieyès's pamphlet incited a radical reaction from its audience because it involved the “political issues of the day and twisted them in a more revolutionary direction”. In the third chapter of the pamphlet, Sieyes proposed that the Third Estate wanted to be ‘something’. But he also stated that, in allowing the privileged orders to exist, they are asking to become ‘the least thing possible’. The usage of such rhetoric in his pamphlet appealed to common causes to unite the audience. At the same time it influenced them to move beyond simple demands and take a more radical position on the nature of government. In this case, the radical position taken by the Third Estate created a sense of awareness that the problems of France were not simply a matter of addressing "royal tyranny," but that unequal privileges under the law had divided the nation. It was from this point that the Revolution’s struggle for fair distribution of power and equal rights began in earnest.

Impact on the Revolution

Sieyès's pamphlet played a key role in shaping the currents of revolutionary thought that propelled France towards the French Revolution. In his pamphlet, he outlined the desires and frustrations of the alienated class of people that made up the third estate. He attacked the foundations of the French Ancien Régime by arguing the nobility to be a fraudulent institution, preying on an overburdened and despondent bourgeoisie. The pamphlet voiced concerns that were to become crucial matters of debate during the convocation of the Estates-General of 1789.

Whereas the aristocracy defined themselves as an élite ruling class charged with maintaining the social order in France, Sieyès saw the third estate as the primary mechanism of public service. Expression of radical thought at its best, the pamphlet placed sovereignty not in the hands of aristocrats but instead defined the nation of France by its productive orders composed of those who would generate services and produce goods for the benefit of the entire society. These included not only those involved in agricultural labor and craftsmanship, but also merchants, brokers, lawyers, financiers and others providing services. Sieyès challenged the hierarchical order of society by redefining who represented the nation. In his pamphlet, he condemns the privileged orders by saying their members were enjoying the best products of society without contributing to their production. Sieyès essentially argued that the aristocracy's privileges established it as an alien body acting outside of the nation of France, and deemed noble privilege “treason to the commonwealth”.

Sieyès’s pamphlet had a significant influence on the structural concerns that arose surrounding the convocation of the Estates general. Specifically, the third estate demanded that the number of deputies for their order be equal to that of the two privileged orders combined, and most controversially “that the States General Vote, Not by Orders, but by Heads”. The pamphlet took these issues to the masses and their partial appeasement was met with revolutionary reaction. By addressing the issues of representation directly, Sieyès inspired resentment and agitation that united the third estate against the feudalistic traditions of the Ancien Régime. As a result, the Third Estate demanded the reorganization of the Estates General, but the two other orders proved unable or unwilling to provide a solution. Sieyès proposed that the members of the First and Second order join the Third Estate and become a united body to represent the nation as a whole. He not only suggested an invitation, however, but also stated that the Third Estate had the right to consider those who denied this invitation to be in default of their national responsibility.

The Third Estate adopted this measure on 5 June 1789; by doing so, they assumed the authority to represent the nation. This radical action was confirmed when they decided to change the name of the Estates General to the National Assembly, indicating that the separation of orders no longer existed.

Assemblies, Convention, and the Terror

Although not noted as a public speaker (he spoke rarely and briefly), Sieyès held major political influence, and he recommended the decision of the Estates to reunite its chamber as the National Assembly, although he opposed the abolition of tithes and the confiscation of Church lands. His opposition to the abolition of tithes discredited him in the National Assembly, and he was never able to regain his authority.^[11] Elected to the special committee on the constitution, he opposed the right of "absolute veto" for the King of France, which Honoré Mirabeau unsuccessfully supported. He had considerable influence on the framing of the departmental system, but, after the spring of 1790, he was eclipsed by other politicians, and was elected only once to the post of fortnightly president of the Constituent Assembly.

Like all other members of the Constituent Assembly, he was excluded from the Legislative Assembly by the ordinance, initially proposed by Maximilien Robespierre, that decreed that none of its members should be eligible for the next legislature. He reappeared in the third national Assembly, known as the National Convention of the French Republic (September 1792 – September 1795). He voted for the death of Louis XVI, but not in the contemptuous terms sometimes ascribed to him. He participated to the Constitution Committee that drafted the Girondin constitutional project. Menaced by the Reign of Terror and offended by its character, Sieyès even abjured his faith at the time of the installation of the Cult of Reason; afterwards, when asked what he had done during the Terror, he famously replied, "J'ai vécu" ("I lived").

Ultimately, Sieyès failed to establish the kind of bourgeois revolution he had hoped for, one of representative order "devoted to the peaceful pursuit of material comfort." His initial purpose was to instigate change in a more passive way, and to establish a constitutional monarchy. According to William Sewell, Sieyès' pamphlet set “the tone and direction of The French Revolution…but its author could hardly control the Revolution’s course over the long run”. Even after 1791, when the monarchy seemed to many to be doomed, Sieyès “continued to assert his belief in the monarchy”, which indicated he did not intend for the Revolution to take the course it did.^[ During the period he served in the National Assembly, Sieyès wanted to establish a constitution that would guarantee the rights of French men and would uphold equality under the law as the social goal of the Revolution; he was ultimately unable to accomplish his goal.

Directory

After the execution of Robespierre in 1794, Sieyès reemerged as an important political player during the constitutional debates that followed. In 1795, he went on a diplomatic mission to The Hague, and was instrumental in drawing up a treaty between the French and Batavian republics. He resented the constitution of 1795 enacted by the Directory, and refused to serve as a Director of the Republic. In May 1798, he went as the plenipotentiary of France to the court of Berlin, in order to try to induce Prussia to ally with France against the Second Coalition; this effort ultimately failed. His prestige grew nonetheless, and he was made Director of France in place of Jean-François Rewbell in May 1799.

Nevertheless, Sieyès considered ways to overthrow the Directory, and is said to have taken in view the replacement of the government with unlikely rulers such as Archduke Charles of Austria and Karl Wilhelm Ferdinand of Brunswick (a major enemy of the Revolution). He attempted to undermine the constitution, and thus caused the revived Jacobin Club to be closed while making offers to General Joubert for a ’for a ’for a ’.

Second Consul of France

The death of Joubert at the Battle of Novi and the return of Napoleon Bonaparte from the Egypt campaign put an end to this project, but Sieyès regained influence by reaching a new understanding with Bonaparte. In the coup of 18 Brumaire, Sieyès and his allies dissolved the Directory, allowing Napoleon to seize power. Thereafter, Sieyès produced the constitution which he had long been planning, only to have it completely remodelled by Bonaparte, who thereby achieved a coup within a coup – Bonaparte's Constitution of the Year VIII became the basis of the French Consulate of 1799–1804.

Napoleonic era and final years

Sieyès soon retired from the post of provisional Consul, which he had accepted after 18 Brumaire, and became one of the first members of the Sénat conservateur (acting as its president in 1799); this concession was attributed to the large estate at Crosne that he received from Napoleon. After the plot of the Rue Saint-Nicaise in late December 1800, Sieyès defended the arbitrary and illegal proceedings whereby Napoleon rid himself of the leading Jacobins.

During the era of the First Empire (1804–1814), Sieyès rarely emerged from his retirement. When Napoleon briefly returned to power in 1815, Sieyès was named to the Chamber of Peers. In 1816, after the Second Restoration, Sieyès was expelled from the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences by Louis XVIII. He then moved to Brussels, but returned to France after the July Revolution of 1830. He died in Paris in 1836 at the age of 88.

Contribution to social sciences

In 1795, Sieyès became one of the first members of what would become the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences of the Institute of France. When the Académie Française was reorganized in 1803, he was elected in the second class, replacing, in chair 31, Jean Sylvain Bailly, who had been guillotined on 12 November 1793 during the Reign of Terror. However, after the second Restoration in 1815, Sieyès was expelled for his role in the execution of King Louis XVI, and was replaced by the Marquis of Lally-Tollendal, who was named to the Academy by a royal decree.

In 1780, Sieyès coined the term sociologie in an unpublished manuscript. The term was used again fifty years later by the philosopher Auguste Comte to refer to the science of society, which is known in English as sociology.

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