Abstract
The Ancien Regime was created by the French Revolution. It was what the revolutionaries thought they were destroying in and after 1789. Nobody before that momentous year thought of themselves as living under something called the Ancien Regime. Ancien means not so much ‘old’ as ‘former’; and there can be no former regime until there is a new one.
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© 1986 William Doyle
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Doyle, W. (1986). Evolution of an Idea 1789—1914. In: The Ancien Regime. Studies in European History. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-07819-6_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-07819-6_1
Publisher Name: Palgrave, London
Print ISBN: 978-0-333-38696-5
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-07819-6
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