Ancien Régime
1400s–1789 sociopolitical system of the Kingdom of France
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The Ancien Régime was the system of government and society in France from the 1400s until the French Revolution in 1789, characterized by absolute royal power, a rigid class structure divided into estates, and special privileges for the nobility and clergy. It matters because its extreme inequalities and inefficiencies ultimately sparked the French Revolution, one of history's most influential upheavals that reshaped ideas about government, rights, and society worldwide.
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Louis XIV (the Sun King), under whose reign the ancien régime reached an absolutist form of government; portrait by Hyacinthe Rigaud, 1701 The Storming of the Bastille on 14 July 1789, later taken to mark the end of the ancien régime
The ancien régime (/ˌɒ̃sjæ̃ reɪˈʒiːm/; French: [ɑ̃sjɛ̃ ʁeʒim] ; lit. 'former regime') was the political and social system of the Kingdom of France that the French Revolution overturned. This was accomplished through its abolition in 1790 of the feudal system of the French nobility and in 1792 through its execution of King Louis XVI and declaration of a republic. "Ancien régime" is now a common metaphor for "a system or mode no longer prevailing".