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The Old Regime and the Revolution

Alexis de Tocqueville (1805 - 1859)
Translated by John Bonner (1828 - 1899)

A calm, philosophical inquiry into the causes of the French Revolution, and the working of the Old Regime. In this work, M. de Tocqueville has daguerreotyped French political society under the old monarchy; shown us where the real power lay, and how it affected individual Frenchmen in the daily avocations of life; what was the real condition of the nobility, of the clergy, of the middle classes, of the "people", of the peasantry; wherein France differed from all other countries in Europe; why a Revolution was inevitable. The information derived under these various heads, it may safely be said, is now first printed. It has been obtained, as M. de Tocqueville informs us, mainly from the manuscript records of the old intendants' offices and the Council of State. Of the labor devoted to the task, an idea may be formed from the author's statement, that more than one of the thirty odd chapters contained in the volume, alone cost him a year's researches.

"I trust," says M. de Tocqueville in his Preface, "that I have written this work without prejudice; but I can not say I have written without feeling. It would be scarcely proper for a Frenchman to be calm when he speaks of his country, and thinks of the times in which we live. I acknowledge, therefore, that in studying the society of the Old Regime in all its details, I have never lost sight of the society of our own day."

The work abounds with allusions to the Empire and the Emperor. It need hardly be added, that these allusions are not eulogistic of the powers that be. Napoleon has seldom been assailed with more pungent satire or more cogent logic. - Summary by Harper & Brothers, Publishers

Genre(s): Political Science, Early Modern

Language: English

Keyword(s): history (878), France (170), french revolution (60), Europe (56), Germany (51), Louis XIV (22), eighteenth century (11), louis xvi (5), france -- history -- revolution 1789-1799 -- causes (1), france -- history -- revolution 1789-1799 (1) ... [Show full list]

Section	Chapter	Reader	Time
Play 01	Preface	tshoes76	00:17:56
Play 02	Contradictory Opinions formed upon the Revolution when it broke out	tshoes76	00:07:58
Play 03	That the fundamental and final Object of the Revolution was not, as some have supposed, to destroy religious and to weaken political Authority	tshoes76	00:08:26
Play 04	That the French Revolution, though political, pursued the same Course as a religious Revolution, and why	tshoes76	00:06:46
Play 05	How the same Institutions had been established over nearly all Europe, and were every where falling to pieces	tshoes76	00:08:48
Play 06	What did the French Revolution really achieve?	Ty Lasky	00:05:34
Play 07	Why the feudal Rights were more odious to the People in France than any where else	JaboVercing	00:20:42
Play 08	That we owe “Administrative Centralization,” not to the Revolution or the Empire, as some say, but to the old Regime	tshoes76	00:16:20
Play 09	That what is now called “the Guardianship of the State” (Tutelle Administrative) was an Institution of the old Regime	tshoes76	00:17:43
Play 10	That administrative Tribunals (la Justice Administrative) and official Irresponsibility (Garantie des Functionnaires) were Institutions of the old Regime	tshoes76	00:08:55
Play 11	How Centralization crept in among the old Authorities, and supplanted without destroying them	tshoes76	00:06:20
Play 12	Of official Manners and Customs under the old Regime	tshoes76	00:17:50
Play 13	How the Capital of France had acquired more Preponderance over the Provinces, and usurped more Control over the Nation, than any other Capital in Europe	tshoes76	00:08:45
Play 14	That Frenchmen had grown more like each other than any other People	tshoes76	00:07:58
Play 15	That these Men, who were so alike, were more divided than they had ever been into petty Groups, each independent of and indifferent to the others	tshoes76	00:26:52
Play 16	How the Destruction of political Liberty and Class Divisions were the Causes of all the Diseases of which the old Regime died	tshoes76	00:20:40
Play 17	Of the kind of Liberty enjoyed under the old Regime, and of its Influence upon the Revolution	tshoes76	00:24:24
Play 18	How the Condition of the French Peasantry was worse in some respects in the Eighteenth Century than it had been in the Thirteenth, notwithstanding the Progress of Civilization	tshoes76	00:31:08
Play 19	How, toward the middle of the Eighteenth Century, literary Men became the leading Politicians of the Country, and of the Effects thereof	tshoes76	00:18:29
Play 20	How Irreligion became a general ruling Passion among Frenchmen in the Eighteenth Century, and of the Influence it exercised over the Character of the Revolution	tshoes76	00:15:49
Play 21	How the French sought Reforms before Liberties	tshoes76	00:21:24
Play 22	That the Reign of Louis XVI. was the most prosperous Era of the old Monarchy, and how that Prosperity really hastened the Revolution	tshoes76	00:18:39
Play 23	How Attempts to relieve the People provoked Rebellion	tshoes76	00:14:15
Play 24	Of certain Practices by means of which the Government completed the revolutionary Education of the People	tshoes76	00:08:55
Play 25	How great administrative Changes had preceded the political Revolution, and of the Consequences thereof	tshoes76	00:18:08
Play 26	How the Revolution sprang spontaneously out of the preceding Facts	tshoes76	00:14:10
Play 27	Appendix	tshoes76	00:19:56
Play 28	Preface (Version 2)	Wayne Cooke	00:21:29

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The Old Regime and the Revolution