The Old Regime and the Revolution

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L'Ancien Régime et la Révolution (1856) is a work by the French historian Alexis de Tocqueville translated in English as either The Old Regime and the Revolution or The Old Regime and the French Revolution. The book analyzes French society before the French Revolution — the so-called "Ancien Régime" — and investigates the causes and forces that brought about the Revolution. It is one of the major early historical works on the French Revolution. In this book, Tocqueville develops his main theory about the French revolution; the theory of continuity in which he states that even though the French tried to disassociate themselves from the past and from the old regime; they continued with the same powerful central government.

[edit] The Ancien Régime and the French Revolution (Hiatus)

The aim of the French Revolution (1789–1799) was not to destroy the sovereignty of religious faith (church) or create a state of permanent disorder (anarchy). It was essentially a movement for political and social reform to increase the power and jurisdiction of the central authority. The Revolution never intended to change the whole nature of our traditional The chief permanent achievement of the French Revolution was the suppression of those political institutions, commonly described as feudal, which for many centuries had held unquestioned sway in most European countries. The Revolution set out to replace them with a new social and political order, based on the concept of equality.^[1] During the French Revolution, Denis Diderot writes and publishes Jacques the Fatalist and his Master. A metafictional work that celebrates diversity rather than providing a clear answer to a problem. The narration of the novel, published in its entirety on 1796, compels the reader to become a character in the book.

In the work, Tocqueville makes some key propositions, of which three are the most discernible. Firstly he stresses the point, that even though the French tried to change close to everything with the Revolution, they fell back on patterns that were observable before it, because they could not help but use them as a template. Especially, they wanted to abolish the old system, but yet ended up, as it was the case before, with a strong state, because, paradoxically: it was the only thing that could be envisioned to destruct the old system and yet maintain order. Thus, much of the old system had to be kept, to use it to bring about its destruction. This, in Tocqueville's view is the reason why even though the French tried to change everything, much stayed as it was before.

A second point that Tocqueville repeatedly stresses is that if people don’t want freedom for its own sake but for some other goal, i.e. to further their material interest, then it is unlikely that freedom will not turn into a despotic form of rule, where everyone may be free to further their material interest, but has no political freedom. He thus argues that if material, self-interested behaviour is the offspring for action, people may vote for a government that gives them economic stability, even if the price to pay for this is political freedom.

Thirdly, seeing Tovqueville's work in context to Democracy in America, it can be argued that he saw France as being the opposite of the US. Whereas in France before (and after) the revolution, people relied on the central power instead of becoming economically or politically active themselves, in the US political action took place on a “grassroots” level. There it were private individuals that were the basis of economic and political life, whereas in France it was the bureaucracy.