faculties mark in advance the circle within which its thought and its
action will be stimulated. Around it, other nations, some more
advanced, others less developed, all with greater caution, some with
better results, attempt similarly a transformation from a feudal to a
modern state; the process takes place everywhere and all but
simultaneously. But, under this new system as beneath the ancient, the
weak is always the prey of the strong. Woe to those (nations) whose
retarded evolution exposes them to the neighbor suddenly emancipated
from his 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 régime, Revolution, new régime, 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