The Old Regime and the Revolution
- Language:
- English
- Translation:
- John Bonner
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- Clean text · 1 illegible passages, excluded from answers
- Extent:
- ~140,000 words · 642 passages
Cite this work
- APAAlexis de Tocqueville. (n.d.). The Old Regime and the Revolution. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/alexis-de-tocqueville/the-old-regime-and-the-revolution
- MLAAlexis de Tocqueville. "The Old Regime and the Revolution." SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/alexis-de-tocqueville/the-old-regime-and-the-revolution.
- ChicagoAlexis de Tocqueville. The Old Regime and the Revolution. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/alexis-de-tocqueville/the-old-regime-and-the-revolution.
What it is about
The 1856 book in which Tocqueville went to the archives to show that the French Revolution broke with the old regime far less than was believed: it continued and completed its work.
Context and history
The central thesis is that administrative centralisation — the replacement of local powers by a bureaucracy answering to Paris — was already all but accomplished before 1789, and that the Revolution inherited and finished it. Hence his most quoted and most disquieting observation: that a bad regime is in greatest danger when it begins to reform itself, and that French peasants were better off than other European populations that did not revolt. It is one of the first works of history written from archival documents with a sociological question in front of it. Tocqueville died before writing the second volume, on the Revolution itself.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
that the fundamental and final Object of the Revolution was not, us some have supposed, to destroy religious and to weaken political Authority 18 CHAPTER ni. That the French Revolution, though political, pursued the same Course as a religious Revolution, and why 24 CHAPTER IV. How the same Institutions had been established over nearly all Europe, and were every where falling to pieces 29 CHAPTER V. What did the French Revolution really achieve ? 35 BOOK II. CHAPTER I. Why the feudal Rights were more odious to the People in France than any where else 38 CHAPTER n. That we owe "Administrative Centralization," not to the Revolution or the Empire, as some say, but to the old Regime 50 CONTENTS. CHAPTER m. That what is now called "the Guardianship of the State" {Tutelle Administrative) was an Institution of the old Regime Page 61 CHAPTER IV. That administrative Tribunals Qa Justice Administrative) and official Irresponsibility (Garantie des Functionnaires) were Institutions of the old Regime 73 CHAPTER V. * I have made especial use of the archives of some of the greater intendants' offices, such as those of Tours, which are very complete ; they refer to a very large district (generalite), placed in the centre of France, and containing a million of souls. My thanks are due to the young and able keeper of the archives, M. Grandmaison. Other intendants' offices, such as that of lie de France, have satisfied me that business was conducted on the