revolutionary rhetoric

"What is a bourgeois next to a privileged person? The latter always has his eyes on the noble time past. There he sees all his titles, all his strength, he sees his ancestors. The bourgeois, by contrast, his eyes always fixed on the ignoble present, on the indifferent future, prepares for the second and sustains the first by the resources of his industry, He is, instead of having been; he endures hard work and, even worse, the shame of employing his entire intelligence and all his strength for our present service, and lives from work which is essential for us all. Ah! Why can't the privileged go into the past to enjoy their titles, their grandeur, and leave to a stupid nation the present with all its ignobility?" ( Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyes, Essai sur les privileges in Sewell William Jr. A rhetoric of bourgeois revolution. The Abbe Sieyes and What is the Third Estate?)