The Old Regime and The French Revolution

The Old Regime and The French Revolution is an 1856 historical and sociological treatise by French historian Alexis de Tocqueville. Initially published in France, Tocqueville’s work seeks to make sense of the fresh rupture of the French aristocratic system, which took place in the final decade of the eighteenth century. Tocqueville backgrounds his analysis with a deep understanding of how French society worked before the French Revolution, a model known as the Ancien Regime. He argues that the Ancien Regime inadvertently set up the perfect conditions for the French people to stage a mass revolt. Central to this argument is his “theory of continuity,” which posits that the French government would have been unable to sever its ties to the old, autocratic regime without the additional stress of the French Revolution. Rather, the French government tried to hold onto its historical class divisions and centralization of power until the French people eliminated this option. The book is considered one of the foremost early modern works on the history of the French Revolution.

Tocqueville begins his book by describing the primary aims of the French Revolution, which raged from 1789 to 1799. He states that a growing public sentiment against religious authority was the first destabilizing force in France. This sentiment emerged not just because people disliked a government controlled by religion; but also because the church itself was one of the main symbols of the Ancien Regime. Secondly, Tocqueville argues, the French people never desired to throw France into chaos. The uprising swelled because they desired to constructively reform French society and its political process. He rejects the view held by many revolutionaries that the French government became too powerful before its fall. In fact, the French people had already begun taking power away from the monarchy and transforming France into a more democratic model.

Tocqueville contends that the French Revolution never aimed to fundamentally change French society. Its main goal, which it succeeded in fulfilling, was to squelch France’s archaic, feudal political institutions. These institutions had been in place for centuries throughout Europe and were commonly understood to be obsolete. The two pillars of the French Revolution were equality and freedom, features that the feudal system lacked.



Tocqueville contrasts the political arrangements of pre- and post-Revolution France from those of the United States. While France remained strongly governed by a central authority even after the Revolution, the United States always had a robust conception of democracy involving the actions and votes of the common person. In the United States, private citizens were considered the building blocks of the political and economic world. In contrast, the goal of the French Revolution was to keep the government bureaucratic and centralized, even after removing the monarchy.

Tocqueville also traces the start of the French Revolution back to the three main social classes that governed it. These were the nobility, the clergy, and the common folk referred to collectively as the three “Estates.” Before the Revolution, the Estates functioned within oddly conjoined political, social, and economic spheres. For example, feudal lords were in constant contact with the vassals that they owned. When the feudal system dissolved, the new noble class hired people to take care of their country estates and moved into Paris, the epicenter of French society, where the monarchy and bureaucracy both operated. As a result, the nobility became further separated from the common folk who predominantly inhabited the countryside. A burgeoning middle class, meanwhile, attempted to mirror the behaviors and lifestyles of the wealthy. However, the Estates could not remain distinct for long as modernization opened up new ways to exchange goods and ideas. By the end of the 1700s, the French people were resentful of these obsolete de facto divisions and especially hated the nobility. In his analysis, Tocqueville settles on no singular reason for the uprising known as the French Revolution that is so crucial to the beginning of the modern era. At the same time, he argues that the reasons for the French Revolution are highly visible, almost predictable, if one simply pays attention to the problematic social and economic structures that were in place for centuries leading up to it.