Word: ancien
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Bedtime a I'ancien régime was a charade of pomp and circumstantial evidence. Each evening Louis XV pretended to occupy the monumental bed in the grandiose official apartment of Louis XIV at Versailles, while grand dukes and marquises vied to hold a candle or the King's nightshirt. As soon as the last light was snuffed out, Louis XV scrambled out of bed, scurried up a secret staircase and bedded down comfortably in his own cozy petit appartement. In the morning the whole absurd ritual began again in reverse...
...foreign affaire the event places the United States squarely in the position of an ancien regime trying to put down by force a revolutionary government seeking to raise the material position of a people who were in substantial measure victims of past American policies. The notion that the United States had nothing to do with the invasion is too fmay a camouflage to deserve serious consideration after have appeared in the New York Times and also where about the training and support given to Castro's opponents...
Still most governments, as Parkinson says, are too blockheaded to learn it. The power to tax creates the illusion of limitless income, and nations blissfully spend themselves into bankruptcy. France's Ancien Regime bled its life away in red ink before a single head fell under the guillotine...