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Its farms wasted by the improvidence of the ancien régime, its park and château destroyed by desperate peasantry during the frenzy of '93, there remains nothing now but pine-barrens and furze-patches, with a pile of blackened ruins as a monument of former glory and folly.
Captain d'Harcourt had succeeded Major Brocard pro tem as commandant of the unit. He was a very slim, very elegant young man, with the grace and courtesy of the ancien régime which his name evoked, and the perfection of his manners and gentleness seemed to lend convincing power to all he said. Guynemer being missing and Heurtaux wounded, the Storks were now commanded by Lieutenant Raymond.
A daughter of the old Duc de Penthièvre, the embodiment of everything good in the ancien régime, the Duchess of Orléans was, herself, a woman of rare good sense, beauty, and tact, all of which appealed strongly to Mr. Morris, so that the acquaintance begun so graciously on her part and so dubiously on his, soon ripened into real friendship.
Apologists of the Ancien Regime assert, in the first place, that these Bastilles were comfortable, even luxurious retreats; in the second, that lettres de cachet were useful and necessary; in the third, that neither Bastilles nor lettres de cachet were resorted to on the eve of the Revolution. Let us hear what Arthur Young has to say on the subject.
Hence we have a king who wanders in empty splendour through the vast halls of his palaces, habitually followed by hungry office seekers, all of whom live upon the revenue obtained from peasants who are no better than the beasts of the fields. It is not a pleasant picture, but it is not exaggerated. There was, however, another side to the so-called "Ancien Regime" which we must keep in mind.
He twirled his moustache and looked uneasily at Mademoiselle de Verneuil, who made him a sign, as if to say she was still carrying out her plan. "Now," continued Marie, after a pause, "let us discuss these matters. Francine, my dear, bring lights." She adroitly led the conversation to the times which had now, within a few short years, become the "ancien regime."
Of such a character is punishment by "administrative" process in Russia at the present day; imprisonment by lettre de cachet in France under the ancien régime; all executions by so-called martial law in times of rebellion, and the suspension of various ordinary guarantees of immediate and fair trial in Ireland.
The one, Maury, early trained to struggles of polemical theology, had sharpened and polished in the pulpit the eloquence he was to bring into the tribune. Sprung from the lowest ranks of the people, he only belonged to the ancien régime by his garb, and defended religion and the monarchy as two texts, imposed upon him as themes for discourses.
I was cold, and as haughty and aloof as she was herself, but I used every art I knew of to draw her out and make her talk. She is such a lady that she fell into the stride and spoke politely as if to some stranger who had taken her into dinner at a party. At last we talked of the Duchesse, and we discussed her interesting character, such a marvel of the ancien régime!
What wonder, then, that a mind so penetrating and alert as Comte's early arrived at the conclusion that the ancien régime in religion, no less than in politics, must be abolished if progress was to be possible among men? Comte, then, was essentially a social philosopher.
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