All of this contributed to the revolutionary explosion known as the French Revolution, during which the queen, her husband and those close to them perished and the entire
ancient regime was demolished.
Explanatory factors for this experience of failed governance include interchangeably the conservative profile of the MB president, the lack of organizational cohesion, the lack of MB's governing experience, resistance to change from different structures of
ancient regime, an over-mobilized populace, and/or continuous oppression instigated by a powerful military (and sometimes their Western allies).
Provoking boos at the French Embassy's Bastille Day celebration, he hailed the referendum as "a great popular uprising against a stifling bureaucratic
ancient regime (sic) whose democratic credentials had become very far from obvious."
Egyptians have since watched as the Tahrir Square revolutionaries proved incapable of translating their initial victory into a sustainable transition, the military contributed to the impasse by focusing on retaining its decades-long grip on power and the perks that come with it, and the Muslim Brotherhood failed to successfully manoeuvre a minefield populated by
ancient regime institutions seeking to salvage what could be salvaged and many ordinary people demanding economic improvement and political change.
One of the finest products of the examinations, Li Hongzhang, the leader of the Sino-Japanese War in 1895, keenly sensed the changing era as the dawning of the new age, which was "unprecedented in the last three thousand years." That is why the imperial civil examinations were abandoned by the
ancient regime. However, the institutions remain there to revamp the meritocracy, and the pains of the anxiety still affect China as well as the rest of East Asia.
Since the July 2013 military coup, the dynamics in Egypt are characterized by a return of the
ancient regime with a vengeance.
"A talented ambitious Chinese or Indian has zero reason to emigrate to France, unless he is consumed by a perverse fantasy of living in a segregated society that artificially constrains its economic opportunities yet imposes confiscatory taxation on him in order to support an
ancient regime of indolent geriatrics.
The Bastille was a prison and a symbol of the absolute and arbitrary power of Louis the 16th's
Ancient Regime. By capturing this symbol, the people signaled that the king's power was no longer absolute: power should be based on the Nation and be limited by a separation of powers.
In the wake of this revolution --a revolution which eventually brought to power the Ba'th party of Saddam Hussein the
ancient regime of Iraq found itself both persecuted and imprisoned.
Much about the composition evokes that anomalous painter of the
ancient regime: the containers' reflecting surfaces, alive with light; the diligently simplified arrangement of everyday objects; the long handle of the warming pan, the latter reminiscent of Chardin's copper cisterns and kettles, turned toward the viewer, protruding into the flattened space of the image the way pipes, knives, and paintbrushes often do in Chardin.
But is it really an end to that
ancient regime? Will the generals step aside and let a civilian administration oversee, as is customary in a genuine democracy, the running of the country's economy, its foreign policy, its educational and judiciary systems, its defense budget, its national security, and the rest of it?