Old regime

“ There may be this difference between them. The hard-bargains of the old régime were chiefly their own enemies; the hard-bargains of the new régime sometimes manage to make themselves enemies by their own conceit and indocility. ”

“ But during the ’twenties and ’thirties of the 19th century, the men of the “old régime”—the founder and fighters of the young Republic—descended into the grave and they took their301 traditions, their hopes, and their beliefs with them. The curtain rose upon a new time and upon a new people. ”

“ And these things took place, and the kings resumed their thrones, and the master of Europe was put in a cage, and the old regime became the new regime, and all the shadows and all the light of the earth changed place, because, on the afternoon of a certain summer’s day, a shepherd said to a Prussian in the forest, “Go this way, and not that!” ”

“ The unitary absolutist phase follows with the ascending process of the centuries, after which the decadence of the regime begins. A central power debilitation process is produced and, finally, disintegration comes and the nations of the empire remain under the domination of the new imperial nucleus that will subject the old citizens to the regime of servitude and slavery with which the century ends. ”

“ Unaware of the liberating forces which gathered strength within the masses, unconscious of the importance and power of the protesting classes, the aristocracy and the higher plutocracy, and alas! the higher middle classes were thronging the Imperial Court as of old, hunting for favours, honours, positions, basking in the sunshine of the Imperial presence. ”

“ The forces which make for the prolongation of autocracy—the rule of one—and the even deadlier bureaucracy—the rule of a close body welded into an iron system—these have been gathered together in the Central Powers of Europe—as of old in Ravana—in order that they may be destroyed; for the New Age cannot be opened until the Old passes away. The new civilisation of Righteousness and Justice, and therefore of Brotherhood, of ordered Liberty, of Peace, of Happiness, cannot be built up until the elements are removed which have brought the old civilisation crashing about our ears. ”

“ It is not a reform in our government that we need, but a revolution — an overthrow of the present one, and the establishment of a new one. Supposing a few individuals should be hung as traitors, would not that create a sympathy for us among the governments of the old world? ”

“ The causes of the overthrow of the old government are foreign to our present purpose. The consequence has been the birth of this bloody and scorching despotism,—this giant, armed from his mother's womb with sweeping scimitar and consuming fire. Can such a government be fit for such a people? ”

“ The events of that day formed the first disruption of the chrysalis of old political systems, whence speedily came forth a noble and novel creature, with eagle eye and expansive wings, destined speedily to soar far above the creeping reptiles of despotism that brood amid the crumbling relics of old dynasties. ”

“ One scheme of government after another is lifted up to be cast down—tyranny, oligarchy, slavery, commercialism, communism, parliaments, theocracies. The great warriors and the great statesmen are alike entombed in the ruins of their empires. ”

“ Her political revolutions, social Utopias, division of classes, role of the church, conduct of the nobility, of the middle class, and of the people, the development, the direction, or deviation of philosophy, of letters and of the arts. That is why, should we wish to understand our present condition our attention always reverts to the terrible and fruitful crisis by which the ancient regime produced the Revolution, and the Revolution the new regime. ”

“ This is doubtless a rebellion against all the social ideas and prejudices of the old world, but it is perhaps only what might be looked for in a new country, full of robust and ambitious manhood, disdainful of all traditions which in the least savor of monarchy or hierarchy, and eager to blaze as new a path for itself in the social as it has succeeded in accomplishing in the political world. ”

“ You keep shouting for Democracy, but you’ve had it for three hundred years. You really want the moon. I’m with you, heart and soul, when you talk about brains, but I’m up against your method of reform. Go slow, old man. Work your reforms one by one, without creating panic and disorder. There are tremendous forces at work to-day. Unreason and anarchy are rampant. Give the mob its head and this old Empire will tumble like a pack of cards. ”

“ We are passing from an old into a new state of political existence. The alleged evils of former civil relations have induced the creation of new ones; and the denounced evils of a former system of government have led to the establishment of a new system.... ”

“ With respect to the legislative constitution of States and the government of Nations, such an Age either, impelled by its hatred to the old, constructs political fabrics upon the most airy and unsubstantial abstractions, and attempts to govern degenerate men by means of high-sounding phrases without the aid of firm and inflexible power ”

“ Their desire was only to make that death decent and of no hurt to the nation, and to control the political action of a hierarchy that had been wealthy and was bound up with the old society that was crumbling upon every side. ”

“ But the more often the choice fell upon old men, the more often elections had to be repeated, and the more they became a nuisance; intrigues set in, factions were formed, party feeling grew bitter, civil wars broke out; the lives of individuals were sacrificed to the pretended happiness of the State; and at length men were on the point of relapsing into their primitive anarchy. ”

“ The government had dwindled to a sort of Anarchy; every one did what was right in his own eyes; the strong oppressed the weak, the rich the poor, the great the little. There was now no public security in the land; yet the frank spirits of the time thought their new republic very well arranged: “All is in order,” said they, “everything goes on its way with us as well as elsewhere; the wolf eats the lamb, the kite the dove, the fox the cock.” ”

“ No matter whether they came in search of an asylum for their religious beliefs, or in quest of wealth or adventure—no matter whether kings still claimed this new world as theirs, and whether aristocrats or great proprietaries tried to preserve something like feudal authority—all pretensions adverse to political freedom speedily vanished in this atmosphere. ”

“ Their forefathers settled the country, fought in the Revolution, and helped to build the nation and the State, but now people whisper of degeneration. In the old city modern men have risen to power, control the franchises, manage the local government, and are large in the public eye. ”

“ Our manifest national policy has been foreshadowed by the conditions that have been created. Averse to wars of conquest, and free from disturbing visions of imperial power and grandeur, the nation has become great beyond the dreams of its founders. A new era is upon it—a condition and not a theory confronts it. Its traditions must be partially shattered and its policy revised and shaped with reference to the exigencies of the times. ”

“ The general entered minutely into all the circumstances of the great political change, and detailed the effect which the late conspiracy had had on the minds of the people, and with what terror they contemplated the social disorders that must accrue from the death of their great ruler; how nothing short of a Government based on a Monarchy, with the right of succession established, could withstand such a terrific crisis. ”

“ Hence every individual among them knows full well that the fearful and fermenting elements of their great old civil commotion have never been perfectly appeased, and finally allayed, but have been merely repressed from time to time, and prevented from breaking out anew by means of a Constitution, which on that account is reputed glorious. ”

“ However, in less than a generation our country, shaken to its very foundations by the great social upheavals known as revolutions, has seen its old institutions crumble to pieces and other, entirely new institutions rise in their place ”

“ The Revolution.—The revolution comes with all of its horrors. The church is humbled and crushed, the government razed to the ground, monarchy is beheaded, and the flower of nobility cut off. The wild mob at first seeks only to destroy; later it seeks to build a new structure on the ruins. The weak monarch, attempting to stem the tide, is swept away by its force. He summons the States-General, and the commons declare themselves the national assembly. ”

“ Shall the decay of a mighty Empire be marked by such a House of Lords as may facilitate the plans of the demagogue, sinking the Sovereign to a Doge, and the Church to a State hireling, and giving to the Commons the unrestrained privilege of revolution and anarchy? ”

“ The respective demagogues contended for mastery; and the nation gazed on their contests as on so many prize-fighters, whose uninteresting warfare regarded only themselves. Weary of confusion and discord; aware that faction had broken every promise and frustrated every hope; that the visions of freedom had been the harbingers of despotism; and that pretensions to moderation, disinterestedness, and purity, were but the disguise of rapacity, pride, and selfishness, the nation longed for the restoration of a lineal Sovereign, a regular government, and determinate laws. ”

“ But half a century elapses and this free government is ruled by a despotic interest; the Republic sinks into the mire of slavery and corruption, sinks deeper and deeper, and the hope of humanity sinks with it. ”

“ All the old institutions which have outlived their usefulness and become a cover for abuses and an excuse for error, so that the wars and revolutions which overthrow them are a comparative good, must also be regarded as clogs which fetter us in our attempts to grasp what our knowledge and labor have brought within our reach. ”

“ You see, the present régime of our Imperial Government is, after all, a restoration to its ancient form, animated by modern spirits. Our change has not taken place through any uprising of the people at large. Before the Restoration, European notions of "Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity" had not been much developed, it is true, but then the people had not been labouring under any great oppression and destitution. ”

“ What happens, by some intractable fate, is paralleled by our political and social courses, where, in some nominal monarchy, a popularized parliamentary system breaks down in venality and incompetence, and a revolutionary progress is made into anarchy by way of a theoretical "republic," as in Portugal, China, Russia, and the tottering states of the dismembered "Central Empires." ”

“ The old republics of the past may be said to have fallen, not because of party spirit, but because there was no adequate machinery by which party spirit could develop itself with facility and regularity. “And if our Republic be true to herself, the future of the human race is assured by our example. ”

“ The effects produced (many perhaps unavoidably) by a state of revolution—the strange remedies devised to obviate them—the alternate neglect and severity with which the laws are executed—the mixture of want and profusion that distinguish the lower classes of people—and the distress and humiliation of the higher; all offer scenes so new and unaccountable, as not to be imagined by a person who has lived only under a regular government, where the limits of authority are defined, the necessaries of life plentiful, and the people rational and subordinate. ”

“ There remain to be mentioned two political forces equally conservative. The first is that species of lethargy and contempt which has forbidden us, as it has forbidden every other aristocratic community, to destroy the vestiges of its past. ”

“ As soon as the establishment of the hierarchy of fiefs had put an end to discord and anarchy, the germs of the Great Revolution—destined to restore civil liberty to the heirs of the countless inhabitants whom the misfortunes of Gaul and the tyranny of the emperors had reduced to servitude—began to show themselves. ”

“ Increasing anarchy, the impotence of the central government, the state of the national finances, the progressive deterioration of the general condition of the country, practically abandoned by a sovereign who preferred the gaieties and frivolities of society life in the European capitals to the discharge of the stern and urgent responsibilities which the plight of his nation demanded, sounded the death knell of a dynasty which, it was generally felt, had forfeited the crown. ”

“ It is true this country lately armed in opposition to regal despotism—impoverished by the expences of a long war, and unable immediately to fulfil their public or private engagements that appeared in some instances, with a boldness of spirit that seemed to set at defiance all authority, government, or order, on the one hand ”

“ At length, the great conquest over executive power, in the leading western states of Europe, has been accomplished. The feudal system, like other stupendous fabrics of past ages, is known only by the rubbish which it has left behind it. Crowned heads have been compelled to submit to the restraints of law, and the PEOPLE, with that intelligence and that spirit which make their voice resistless, have been able to say to prerogative, "Thus far shalt thou come, and no farther." ”

“ It was the ancient régime contending against a revolutionary uprising, and in poetry, as in politics, the leaders of revolution are sure to be excessive, to force their notes, to frighten their elders, and to scandalise the conservative mind. ”

“ An era that sees a populace always clamouring for the Millennium, which ranting demagogues have never ceased to promise: a Millennium to be achieved alternatively through the extermination of Aristocracy, of Titles, of Riches, and the abrogation of Priesthood: through dethroned royalty and desecrated altars, through an army without leadership, or an Assembly without power. ”