Ancien Régime

Ancien Régime (French for " former government ", " old country " ) originally referred to and in the narrower sense, the form of government of the Bourbons in France; in a broader sense the early modern period in Europe before the French Revolution of 1789 and before the Napoleonic Wars. Often the term is equated with absolutism.

Ancien Régime in the narrow sense

Originally, the form of government of the absolutist ruling Bourbons in France is called with the Ancien Régime. In this sense, the term began by 1856 at the latest in the science of history, after the French writer and politician Alexis de Tocqueville had published his essay L' ancien régime et la Révolution, an analysis of the French Revolution.

The Bourbons came in 1589 with King Henry IV for the first time on the throne and reigned good 200 years without interruption.

The three years between 1789 and the beginning of the French Revolution, and in 1792, the year of the complete destruction of the ancien régime, are considered transitional period. In this the rule of the king was already broken, but the monarchy as such still existed. Was Declared the First Republic in France until September 21, 1792, the day after the victory of the French revolutionary forces against the anti - revolutionary coalition in the battle of Valmy. At this time, the King Louis XVI. arrested for for six weeks.

Change in meaning

The term ancien régime was occupied as a reminder of the " good old days" before the revolutionary upheavals originally quite positive. Talleyrand once said, those who have not experienced the Ancien Régime, do not know the sweetness of life ( la douceur de la vie). The authorities at the time mourned for the Ancien Régime, often " When the Lord was still a Lord and the servant a servant " with the words.

Today ancien régime has more of a negative connotation to refer to the pre-revolutionary absolutism.

In a figurative sense, the term is now also commonly used for a about perfect, mostly monarchical system of government that is no longer in line with the requirements of the time. For example, is sometimes referred to 1917 as the " Ancien Régime " the monarchical government of Portugal before 1910 or the reign of the last Tsar Nicholas II in Russia.

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