s chrysalis state, and is the first to go
forth fully armed! Woe likewise to him whose too violent and too abrupt
evolution has badly balanced his internal economy. Who, through the
exaggeration of his governing forces, through the deterioration of his
deep-seated organs, through the gradual impoverishment of his vital
tissues is condemned to commit inconsiderate acts, to debility,
to impotency, amidst sounder and better-balanced neighbors! In the
organization, which France effected for herself at the beginning of the
(19th) century, all the general lines of her contemporary history were
traced. 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.

Ancient regime, Revolution, new regime, I am going to try to describe
these three conditions with exactitude. I have no other object in
view. A historian may be allowed the privilege of a naturalist; I
have regarded my subject the same as the metamorphosis of an insect.
Moreover, the event is so interesting in itself that it is worth the
trouble of being observed for its own sake, and no effort is required
to suppress one's ulterior motives. Freed from all prejudice, curiosity
becomes scientific and may be completely concentrated on the secret
forces, which guide the wonderful process. These forces are the
situation, the passions, the ideas, the wills of each group of actors,
and which can be defined and almost measured. They are in full view; we
are not reduced to conjectures about them, to uncertain divination,
to vague indications. By singular good fortune we perceive the men
themselves, their exterior and their interior. The Frenchmen of the
ancient regime are still within visual range. All of us, in our youth,
(around 1840-50), have encountered one or more of the survivors of this
vanished society. Many of their dwellings, with the furniture, still
remain intact. Their pictures and engravings enable us to take part in
their domestic life, see how they dress, observe their attitudes and
follow their movements. Through their literature, philosophy, scientific
pursuits, gazettes,