The Ancien Régime and the Revolution

The Ancien Régime and the Revolution is a comparison of revolutionary France and the despotic rule it toppled. Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–59) is an objective observer of both periods – providing a merciless critique of the ancien régime: with its venality: oppression and inequality: yet acknowledging the reforms introduced under Louis XVI: and claiming that the post-Revolution state was in many ways as tyrannical as that of the King; its once lofty and egalitarian ideals corrupted and forgotten. Writing in the 1850s: Tocqueville wished to expose the return to despotism he witnessed in his own time under Napoleon III: by illuminating the grand: but ultimately doomed: call to liberty made by the French people in 1789. His eloquent and instructive study raises questions about liberty: nationalism and justice that remain urgent today.