“The Old Regime and the French Revolution” by Alexis De Tocqueville

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Alexis De Tocqueville was a famous French writer and thinker. He was born in 1805 in an aristocratic French family (De Tocqueville, 2010). De Tocqueville was deeply involved in the studies of history and wrote several books, with The Old Regime and the French Revolution being his last work. This paper focuses on the I and II parts of the last of De Tocqueville’s works, summarizing the content of individual chapters. In particular, it emphasizes the main mistakes of the Old Regime that both invoked and shaped the French Revolution.

In the first chapter, Tocqueville explains the French Revolution’s inevitability and its shocking impact in the context of Europe nobility not realizing its true scope. At first, they regarded the Revolution (1789–99) as a temporal phenomenon from both foreign and domestic perspectives (Bourke, 2022). The nobles of other countries saw opportunities that could potentially lead to their advantage. However, they soon realized its originality and had to change their approach. Upon its outbreak, the nobility still fundamentally misunderstood the Revolution and supposed that it might be everlasting and groundbreaking for the whole civilization.

The Church suffered significant losses during the French Revolution. It has caused several wrong associations with an anti-religious sentiment of the Revolution. Consequently, in chapter 2, Tocqueville (2010) explains that the Church was targeted by the anti-elitist and semi-anarchist aims of the Revolution due to being a part of the feudal system. Tocqueville notes that it was political involvement rather than religion that provoked hostility. He also highlights that, overall, Christianity is not antithetical to democratic ideas.

The French Revolution was truly revolutionary due to its universality. In other words, its ideals were easily applicable not only to the French and their rights but to other people and places as well. Moreover, albeit being political at its core, the Revolution’s values invoked such passion among its followers that it emulated a religious fervor (Shusterman, 2020). Ultimately, this tendency led to the French Revolution embracing the religious movement character rather than a solely political one, seeking to establish universal rights without geographical boundaries.

In the fourth chapter, Tocqueville provides a brief history of the European civilization’s development after the Roman Empire’s fall. In this context, he explains that the structure of society and political institutions, in general, were ubiquitously homogenous – feudal – across the region throughout the Middle Ages (Singh, 2021). During this time, the feudal system reigned. However, as the Middle Ages ended, this system began to change due to the loss of power by local governments in favor of a centralized authority. With local lords serving mainly ceremonial purposes and centralized authorities controlling real power, the spirit of the feudal system gradually disappeared, which played an important role in the Old Regime’s fall.

In this short chapter, Tocqueville summarizes the first book of his analysis of the French Revolution. He agrees that the Revolution is responsible for the sudden feudalism’s collapse but states that this system was already dying (Tocqueville, 2010). From Tocqueville’s perspective, historical changes are the products of long and steady processes – the Revolution grew for several generations in Europe. Consequently, as feudalism was declining in the region, its death occurred in France. In this context, Tocqueville argues that the aim of the French Revolution was a reorganization, not anarchy. The Revolution’s main goals and eventual accomplishments were to destroy the feudal order and replace it with the concept of equality (Tocqueville, 2010). Consequently, Tocqueville repeats his main point regarding the Revolution’s inevitability, resulting from the rise and fall of feudalism as a system that has outlived itself and had to be changed regardless. With the establishment of nearly identical living conditions in other countries, Tocqueville continues to investigate the exact reason behind the Revolution’s French origins.

In light of the Revolution’s purpose to demolish feudalism, it is logical to imply that the Revolution should have occurred in a country where peasants had faired the worst. However, Tocqueville proves that implication wrong at the beginning of the second part. He argues it was not the French feudalism’s dominance but its weakness that provided a fertile ground for Revolution (Tocqueville, 2010). Feudalism had become anachronistic and useless in French society.

In the next chapter, Tocqueville pictures the French central government before the Revolution. As feudalistic practices grew weaker, France developed a centralized government administered primarily by commoners (Aslanmirza, 2021). At its center was the Royal Council, with members appointed directly by the king. Compared to the nobility members, the Council did not display its influence needlessly and was discrete in nature. It discussed and passed laws, defined taxes, and allocations, and acted as the supreme court for French appeals. Another feudalistic practice that was abandoned referred to the manor lords’ legal obligations to support the welfare of poor community members. Instead, it became the central government’s role to solve economic and social issues.

During the Middle Ages, French municipalities and towns were semi-autonomous, with officials being elected and accountable to the townspeople. However, in 1692, the practice of free and democratic municipal elections was abolished; instead, the king began to appoint them. In the third chapter of Book II, Tocqueville notes that this tendency was largely driven by a desire for profit, not by the opposition to democracy (Tocqueville, 2010). Consequently, in place of townspeople, assemblies began to consist of notorious middle-class and business corporation representatives. In addition, the abolishment of democratic practices occurred in the context of central authorities slowly overtaking every detail of social life in France.

The fourth chapter of the second book provides insights into the corruption of the French judicial system. Tocqueville explains that French courts originally held remarkable independence. However, the central government made the majority of court cases subject to the jurisdiction of the king, effectively subduing the courts (Tocqueville, 2010). In other words, any case in the king’s interest was directed to special courts under the royal influence. For instance, such was the case for essential government officials who were protected from legal trials regardless of their actions (Tocqueville, 2010). Starting as an exception for individual cases, it eventually became a fundamental rule, leaving only the semblance of the former justice.

The fifth chapter of the second part is a recapitulation of the situation in pre-revolutionary France. The central government had full control over France: governmental representatives assigned to provinces allowed for no self-sufficiency, whereas special courts monitored the cases regarding central administration (Tocqueville, 2010). Tocqueville (2010) remarks that centralization was further accelerated by the Revolution. Due to its anti-aristocratic motive, the Revolution contributed to centralization after defeating the monarchy.

In this chapter, Tocqueville explains the social reasons behind the increased centralization. As mentioned in the previous chapter, nearly every life aspect relied on the central government under the Old Regime. Such paternalism made the people dependent on the central authorities to provide the solution to any issue (Tocqueville, 2010). Consequently, when the Revolution of 1789–99 arrived, people were largely unable to live in a system that was not governed by a powerful central authority.

Before the Revolution, France was centralized both in government and geography, with the capital of Paris being its life force. According to Tocqueville (2010), Parisian authorities had full control over the country. At the same time, Paris grew exponentially as a commercial and cultural center. The press was concentrated in Paris, which made the Parisian point of view the only valid reference (Tocqueville, 2010). In addition to its cultural, governmental, and intellectual dominance, Paris also grew as a manufacturing center. In this context, it hosted the majority of the labor force available.

In the eighth chapter of the second book, Tocqueville studies the background of the homogeneity of the French community. He mainly refers to the powerful middle class that grew in power at the expense of the nobility, which became possible due to the long-time practice of selling land in exchange for funds (Tocqueville, 2010). The new landowners had the same ideas, habits, and interests in books and amusements. This fact, combined with the ubiquitous and standardized governmental legislature, eventually resulted in societal sameness.

Simultaneously with the loss of political power, nobility gained individual privileges. Tocqueville expands on this issue in the ninth chapter of the second part in light of French strict social stratification. For instance, nobles were exempted from the taille land tax attributable to the majority of the population (Tocqueville, 2010). Close to the Revolution, this tax dramatically increased, motivating non-noble people to crave privileged titles, which were sold by the crown. As a result, the original nobility disregarded middle-class individuals who bought the title, while the latter treated peasants even worse. Therefore, a sense of solidarity and community was absent in the country.

In the tenth chapter, Tocqueville argues that taxation without consent was the Old Regime’s fatal error. It began with King Charles VII (1403–61) being desperate to establish stability in the kingdom. Consequently, he pronounced the taille tax not consenting to the country’s legislative body (Tocqueville, 2010). In this context, Tocqueville exemplifies that French commoners and nobility were demotivated to work together to find solutions to their problems – instead, the classes became rivals. The nobility agreed not to oppose the tax in exchange for the exemption from it. In return, nobles were expected to provide military service, but the proportional growth of taxes in the following years completely devaluated their sacrifice.

The eleventh chapter of the second book comments on the spirit of individual freedom present in society despite the ubiquitous governmental control of public affairs. According to Tocqueville (2010), the French government was encouraged solely by greed and did not intend to explicitly provoke anger in public opinion. Consequently, people were allowed to express their opinions and share their grievances. In particular, the nobility and clergy were well-positioned to communicate their views to the monarchy. In this regard, Tocqueville considers a loss that these classes were targeted by the Revolution. For instance, he explains that despite the commonly held opinions, the clergy actually served as a shield against the crown’s greed.

In the last chapter of the second book, Tocqueville elaborates on the conditions of the commoners that had severely deteriorated by the 1780s. Aligning with the feudalism decline in Europe, the quality of life of the peasantry decreased proportionally. The drastic social stratification within French society ensured that the educated upper and middle classes moved to live in towns and cities, practically viewing the country’s people as aliens (Tocqueville, 2010). For example, this tendency had a substantial negative effect on agricultural development and production, which did not progress past rudimentary methods. Overall, French society had become fragmented, with each group resenting the other. By establishing such a situation, the central government subdued society and took away the tools to retaliate effectively. However, it had lost the support required in times of need to keep itself afloat.

Judging by the summary of the listed chapters, it becomes apparent that the economic and social policies of the Old Regime gradually contributed to and ultimately led to the Revolution. In the first book, Tocqueville pictures the French Revolution as inevitable and universal, listing the monarchy, the Church, and the nobility among its victims. In the second book, Tocqueville provides the reasoning behind peculiar features of the Revolution and its backgrounds, such as social stratification, taxation, and centralization.

References

Aslanmirza, Ö. (2021). Public Traces in Pre-Revolutionary France: Trivets of the Public Sphere.Current Research in Social Sciences, 7(1), 23-30.

Bourke, R. (2022). Hegel and the French Revolution. History of European Ideas, 1-12.

De Tocqueville, A. (2010). The old regime and the French revolution. Anchor.

Shusterman, N. (2020). The French Revolution: Faith, Desire, and Politics. Routledge.

Singh, V. (2021). Nature of the european medieval society: A review. Asian Journal of Multidimensional Research, 10(8), 42-45. Web.

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“The Old Regime and the French Revolution” by Alexis De Tocqueville

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