The Ancien Régime

Erosophia Encyclopedia — an encyclopedia that cites its sources.

Entry
The Ancien Régime — Monarchical France before 1789, named retroactively by the Revolution
The name the Revolution gave to what it was abolishing: the society of orders, monarchy by divine right, and the privileges of the provinces. Its beginning carries no date of an act, and the encyclopedia would rather say so than pick one. (Editorial synthesis)
The Ancien Régime ended on 4 August 1789. (source: Larousse)
The Ancien Régime ended in the abolition of the society of orders and France’s entry into the age of constitutions. (source: Larousse and Encyclopædia Universalis)
← Ask the encyclopedia another question
Answers are drawn from a corpus established and verified by an editorial team; each one shows its source.
When a piece of information is not in that collection, the encyclopedia says so rather than inventing it — that principle is what makes every answer it does give trustworthy.