Talk:Ancien régime

Infobox Former Country

 * People have placed on this artcle, choosing "Ancien Régime in France" as a de facto stand in for pre-Revolutionary France from 843 to 1789, whereas this article has a far more limited scope (ca. 15th - 18th centuries, France's political and social structures).  The Bourbon, Valois and Capetian articles don't seem suitable for this template either.  Early Modern France and France in the Middle Ages might be candidates.  Any suggestions? -- NYArtsnWords 16:49, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree with you. I have made recently the translation from here to spanish wikipedia myself, without the infobox. The purpose of the article is history of institutions, not general history.--Ángel Luis Alfaro 16:36, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I have moved and split the infobox to Early Modern France and France in the Middle Ages. It's not perfect, but it's better than it is now. -- NYArtsnWords 18:35, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

New Name
I suggest renaming the article Kingdom of France. Also may I suggest compiling it also with France in the mddle Ages.--Philip Auguste 03:27, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Hello there Philip Auguste, member of the Central Committee. I think your name is a bit too late for the ancien regime. I do disagree with you here. Some Kingdoms of France are post-revolutionary. We need an article on the ancien regime, so I believe this one has to be made consonant. I think you are right about including earlier periods. It should go all the way back to the first kingdom of France. Anyway I believe there now is an article on the Kingdom of France. I will probably chip away at this one. I see you had to wait 7 years for me to come along. I guess you had the 7 lean years first.Branigan 01:02, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Wordiness
This article needs to be trimmed of its vague terms and excessive wordiness. For example, in the lead section: "Radical suppression of administrative incoherence"? What does that even mean? 69.78.133.71 (talk) 20:19, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Picture anomaly
Looking at these pictures I feel as though I'm a book dealer looking for originals of the 7th gate in a certain notable and entertaining film. One coat of arms has one shield; the other, two. Which is it, one or two? Well, the source for the one in the box says it was used by the Bourbons of the restoration. They were definitely NOT ancien regime. The whole College of Heralds was abolished in 1790. The one outside the box appears to be the correct one, as Bourbon France was formed by the union of France and Navarre. I swear, I have not been drinking the Bourbon. They are different. We can't have different coats of arms for the same kingdom walking around, now can we? So, I'm changing the picture on the ancien regime template, as it was designed only for the anciem regime, which the restored Bourbons are definitely NOT!Branigan 00:41, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

ref formats
The references and bibliography are not in consistent formats and there is no method of signifying duplicate refs. I think I will help with this.Branigan 01:27, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

editorial opinion
"Schama goes on to make a revised case for a France under Louis XVI that was in fact modernizing its institutions, its economic structure, its cultural and social values. Similar to other sweeping criticisms of the past, such as the consciously disparaging term "Dark Ages" for what is more commonly known as the Early Middle Ages, Ancien Régime was not a neutral historical descriptor. It was created by the French Revolutionaries to promote their cause, coloring pre-revolutionary society with disapproval and implying approval of a "New Order".

On the other hand, reference to the Ancien Régime was also used in a distinctly positive sense, i. e. "good old times"; cf. the remark of Talleyrand that whoever did not live under the ancient regime had no idea about the sweetness of life. In modern usage, it has acquired a third, neutral sense, i. e. the political system of France before 1789 and others similar to it.

The analogous term "Antiguo Régimen" is often used in Spanish. However, although Spain was strongly affected by the French Revolution and its aftermath, the break was not as sharp as in France."

I removed these tagged paragraphs. Although Note #2's reference to the quote from Schama on the named page is there (I looked at Schama) all that other stuff is not. If it is not in Schama it must be legacy from EB or the editor's opinion. The editor is saying, the revolutionaries invented the ancien regime and cast it in a bad light to make the revolution look good. Schama is not saying that. No "New Order" is mentioned. Schama does defend the ancien regime. The editor has an interesting opinion, but it leaves an unanswered question: why should the revolutionaries invent a bad view of the past in order to justify the revolution? Why revolt, if there is nothing to revolt about? There was plenty to revolt about. Anyway, all I am saying, is give peace a chance ... no. I mean,the section really has only Schama for reference but otherwise is very unclear and opinionated, and is not Schama. More work needed.Branigan 02:53, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Old page history
Some old page history that used to be at the title "Ancien Régime" can now be found at Talk:Ancien Régime/Old history; its corresponding talk page can be found at Talk:Ancien Régime/Old talk. Graham 87 09:30, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

External links modified
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Sentence needs rewrite
This sentence is trying to say too much in one breath, and appears to be grammatically faulty:

The administrative and social structures of the Ancien Régime resulted from years of state-building, legislative acts (like the Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts), internal conflicts, and civil wars, but they remained and the Valois Dynasty's attempts at re-establishing control over the scattered political centres of the country were hindered by the Huguenot Wars (or Wars of Religion of 1562-1598).

The conjunctive phrase " ... but they remained" is problematic.

"They" are the "administrative and social structures of the Ancien Régime resulted from years of state-building, legislative acts (like the Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts), internal conflicts, and civil wars". This sentence outlines the emergence and persistence of the Ancien Regime.

Having established how the administrative and social structures of the Ancien Régime "resulted" (came into being? failed to be out-competed by other social forces?), the sentence uses a conjunction: "but they remained".

Indeed, they should remain, since the sentence opens with a statement of how the Ancien Regime emerged and persisted, i.e. remained.

I think I have some idea what this sentence is supposed to say, and I may get around to fixing it, which in my mind involves breaking it into two or possibly three shorter sentences.

If you are similarly motivated, have at, don't wait for me.

Karl gregory jones (talk) 01:04, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Good point. I made a stab at it. --Robert.Allen (talk) 07:03, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

"Origin of term" clarification
It says the term first appeared in English at a certain time. Does this mean it appeared in an English publication before it ever appeared in a French one? TooManyFingers (talk) 20:24, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Good point. I've added a sentence to clarify that it was first used in France. --Robert.Allen (talk) 02:37, 19 August 2021 (UTC)

Nostalgia
Why is this quote 'translated' in parantheses? It's pretty clear from the quote what is being said.... Did the editor mean to use brackets to modernize the tense?

"He who did not live in the eighteenth century before the Revolution does not know the sweetness of living : ("He who has not lived in the eighteenth century before the Revolution does not know the sweetness of living.")" Tttttarleton (talk) 17:32, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

Capitalisation of "ancien régime"/"Ancien Régime"
I noticed that this page was (fairly) recently moved to an uncapitalised title by @Amakuru, with the reasoning that |Google Ngrams showed that the uncapitalised version was more common in English texts.

However, note [a] of this very article states that "when ["Ancien Régime"] is capitalised, it refers specifically to the political and social system in France before the French Revolution. When it is not capitalised, it can refer to any political or social system that has been displaced." Furthermore, Wiktionary defines "ancien régime" as "former government" whilst "Ancien Régime" is defined as "The aristocratic social and political system established in France under the Valois and Bourbon dynasties, overthrown by the French Revolution of 1789." And anecdotally, I've found that the capitalised version is more common across Wikipedia and other sources.

So I believe that the results of Amakuru's Ngram search may have come from uses of the uncapitalised "ancien régime" in more general contexts, not referring to the old monarchist French state. I propose that this page should be moved back to the capitalised version and all of the spellings on the page should be changed back to that.

- Alisperic (talk) 11:53, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
 * thanks for the ping... and as you note, this was a recent undiscussed move so if you really disagree with it, then we can revert and open a formal move discussion. However, having a little look around sources I do think I was still correct to move this. I do note what you say about the New Oxford American Dictionary separating capitalised and non-capitalised according to whether it's referring to the actual French regime or not... but I'm not sure that other sourcing really bears that out. Merriam Webster, for example, simply lists both meanings under the lower-case form, and when searching Google books specifically for running prose examples (which is what matters for MOS:CAPS rather than usage in titles) we similarly find many cases where the French regime itself is described in sentence case... e.g. . That's not to say it isn't capitalised, it often is, but the bar for treating it as a proper name is set very high on Wikipedia, with the default being sentence case. Cheers &mdash; Amakuru (talk) 13:50, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
 * @Amakuru I see... Thank you for researching this a little further and providing an explanation with sources with the uncapitalised version. Although I still would personally prefer the capitalised form, I understand that Wikipedia's bar for capitalisation is quite high and I agree with your point. I don't think I will pursue a formal move discussion.
 * - Alisperic (talk) 03:38, 24 February 2024 (UTC)

Italicization
I can accept breaking MOS:FOREIGNITALICS in cases like the German "Kitsch" where the subject only exists as a subjective term with a unique meaning in the English language, however here the WP:WORDISSUBJECT provision I mentioned in the edit history only covers a small portion of the overall text of the article, the rest is about the historical period as outlined by French-language primary sources, none of which have any direct relation to the metaphorical definition given in the lead. I really don't see why we shouldn't italicize the historical portions of this article the same way we do Kristallnacht, Glaznost', or la Terreur. Orchastrattor (talk) 18:04, 5 June 2024 (UTC)