Word: ancien
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Palm Beach County. Though it includes the town of Palm Beach, this incubator for the newly wealthy is snob years distant from that small, code-ridden oasis of blue blood and encrusted money. The Gold Coast nouveaux, for the most part lustier, sportier and much younger than the ancien régime of Worth Avenue, converge from all over the world to flaunt their millions. As Ralph Destino, president of Cartier, puts it, "They've carved out a new and unique style. There's nothing anywhere that parallels the mix of things here...
...Cherubino, the page with the hormonal imbalance who shouts his love to every woman he meets and whose boyish-girlish looks in turn enchant all the women around him. Atkinson turns this romantic dreamer with ideals dripping from his doublet into a sort of Dennis the Menace of the ancien regime. At first blush, you can't help wondering how this marginally pubescent page would go about kissing one of his idols--he'd have to spit out his bubblegum first. But Atkinson's verve and charm finally overcome the improbability of her characterization to make it a high point...
...substitute discussion for action, talk for work, the inclination for undertaking everything under the sun without finishing anything." Obviously he was right--although the republican and communist revolutions of modern history have derived their inspiration in part from abstract theorization and radical principles, the forces that toppled the ancien regimes in both Europe and Asia depended primarily on the power politics and dogma that motivated insurgents among both peasantry and gentry...