The State of Society in France Before the Revolution of 1789
Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville
The State of Society in France Before the Revolution of 1789 / And the Causes Which Led to That Event
TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE
TO THE SECOND EDITION
An interval of about seventeen years has elapsed since the first publication of this book in France, and of the translation of it, which appeared simultaneously, in England. The English version has not been republished, and has long been out of print. But the work itself has retained a lasting place in the political literature of Europe.
The historical events which have occurred since the date of its first publication have again riveted the attention of every thinking man on the astonishing phenomena of the French Revolution, which has resumed in these later days its mysterious and destructive course; and a deeper interest than ever seems to attach itself to the first causes of this long series of political and social convulsions, which appear to be as far as ever from their termination.
Nor is this interest confined to the state of France alone; for at each succeeding period of our contemporary annals the operation and effects of the same causes may be traced in other countries, and the principles which the author of this book discerned with unerring sagacity derive fresh illustrations every day from the course of events both abroad and at home.
For this reason, mainly, this translation is republished at the present time, in the hope that it may be read by men of the younger generation, who were not in being when it first appeared, and that some of those who read it before may be led by the light of passing events to read it again. For I venture to say that in no other work on the French Revolution has the art of scientific analysis been applied with equal skill to the genesis of these great changes: no other writer has so skilfully traced the continuous operation of the causes, long anterior to the Revolution itself, which have gradually reduced one of the greatest monarchies of Europe to its present condition.
Are we to learn from this stern lesson of experience that the hopes of progress are closely united to the germs of dissolution, and that the great transformation hailed with so much enthusiasm eighty-four years ago was but the prelude of a final catastrophe; that the nation which was the first to plunge into this new order of things, by the destruction of all that it once loved and revered, is also the first to make manifest its fatal results; and that the last results of civilisation are no preservative against the decline of empires? These pages may suggest such reflections, for if the vices and abuses of political society in France before the Revolution were, in some measure, peculiar to herself, the elements of destruction which the Revolution let loose upon the world are common to all civilised nations.
In the present edition, moreover, it appeared to be desirable to make a considerable addition to the volume published in 1856. At the time of his death in the spring of 1859, M. de Tocqueville had made some progress in the continuation of his work, though his labour advanced very slowly, from the minute and conscientious care with which he conducted his researches and elaborated his thoughts. Seven chapters of the new volume were, however, found among his papers by his friend and literary executor, M. Gustave de Beaumont, in a state approaching to completeness; and these posthumous chapters were published in the seventh volume of the collected edition of M. de Tocqueville’s works. They have not before been translated, and they are, I believe, but little known in this country.
These chapters are not inferior, I think, to any of the works of their author in originality and interest; and they have the merit of bringing down his Survey of the State of France before the Revolution to the very moment which preceded the convocation of the States-General. I have therefore included these posthumous chapters in the present edition, and they form a Third Boo