title: Mitsubishi Mirage

text: A minor facelift arrived in 1997. Of note, the Lancer sedan featured a new grille and reshaped inner-portions of the headlamps to better differentiate it from the Mirage donor model. Both the coupé and sedan benefited from redesigned tail lamps, whereas the three-door only received a redesigned front bumper incorporating a larger grille. In 1997, a classically styled version of the Mirage three-door hatchback became available in Japan, badged Mirage Modarc. The Modarc featured chrome for the grille, side mirrors, door handles, and bumper strips; it also included fog lights and optional alloy wheels. In 2001, the Mirage-based models gained a chrome-trimmed grille insert in limited markets.


title: Mitsubishi Mirage

text: Although a new, substantially larger and more expensive generation of Lancer sedan arrived in 2000, many export markets retained the Mirage-derived model up until 2003 when Japanese manufacture concluded and Mitsubishi retired the "Mirage" nameplate worldwide. This is especially true of the hatchback and coupé which were not redesigned due to Mitsubishi's financial troubles. In other markets, the newer sedan often co-existed with the old as a more premium offering. Mitsubishi eventually replaced the three-door in 2005 for Europe only with the three-door Colt—the name previously used in many export markets to denote the Mirage from 1978 onwards. A five-door variant of the Colt had earlier been released in 2002. By 2003, the only Mirage sold in Japan was the coupé, now without the Asti designation. Mitsubishi did not tender a replacement for the coupé.


title: Mitsubishi Mirage

text: European three-door CJO series models of this generation were sold between 1995 and 2001 as the Colt. Sedans and wagons sold as Lancers.


title: Mitsubishi Mirage

text: This generation was sold in Australia between 1996 and 2003, designated the "CE" series. Like the previous generation, this model was available as a coupé and sedan (badged Lancer), and as the three-door titled Mirage. The Lancer wagon lingered on as a "CE" model, despite being a facelifted remnant of the previous generation. Towards the end of its model run, Mitsubishi introduced several limited editions (based on the GLi) to remain competitive with its rivals. These extras such as sports interiors, alloy wheels, and body kits. Despite the introduction of the new generation Lancer sedan to Australia in 2002, the "CE" continued alongside it until production ended in 2003, including the sedan which remained as the basic GLi. The coupé was now only available in GLi and MR trims.


title: Mitsubishi Mirage

text: In the United States, the fifth generation Mirage arrived for the 1997 model year and was again available in sedan and coupé versions. The 1.5- "4G15" and 1.8-liter engines from the previous iteration returned in DE and LS trims, respectively. The 1998 model year brought a stronger starter and battery; 1999 introduced a minor facelift, plainer seat fabric; and for the LS coupé, white-faced gauges and a tachometer with either transmission (it was formerly exclusive to the manual). For 2000, Mitsubishi added further standard equipment, plus the standardization of the 1.8-liter engine for the DE sedan; anti-lock brakes were deleted from the options list. Mitsubishi renamed the DE sedan as ES for model year 2001. Mirage sedans were replaced with the next generation Lancer for 2002, although the coupé lingered on for 2002 in North America. The production of the model year 1999 Mirage sedans was greatly lowered due to the large demand for the Eclipse; there were only 4,783 Mirage DE (Deluxe Edition) units produced and 3,829 Mirage sedans exported for that model year. In Puerto Rico, the Mirage was sold as the Mitsubishi Technica and Mirage Technica.


title: Mitsubishi Mirage

text: Venezuela received this series in 1998 as a Lancer where it remained until 2001. After this, the next generation Lancer entered the market and local production of the old sedan recommenced between 2003 and 2010 under the Mitsubishi Signo name. Variants of the Signo comprise the base 1.3-liter GLi, and the 1.6-liter "Plus" and "Taxi" trims.


title: Mitsubishi Mirage

text: In the Philippines, MMPC introduced it in 1996 as the Lancer sedan. Initially it was offered in three grades; EL, GL, and the top-spec GLXi which are locally assembled in MMPC's cainta assembly plant. The EL & GL grades are powered by either a 1.3 or 1.5L carburated engine, while the GLXi is powered by a 1.6L inline-four engine all paired to a standard 5-speed manual or a 4-speed automatic transmission (GL & GLXi only).


title: Mitsubishi Mirage

text: In 1997, MMPC added the Limited Saloon & 2-door GSR coupe variants to the lineup. Both grades are still powered by the 1.6L inline-four engine with a choice of a standard 5-speed manual or INVECS 4-speed automatic transmission. The "Limited Saloon" featured redesigned grille, leather upholstery, JBL speakers, taillight garnish, power adjustable seats (driver side only), keyless entry among other features.


title: Mitsubishi Mirage

text: In 1998, the 2-door Lancer known as the Lancer GSR received a facelift. It featured strut bar, leather steering wheel and seats, Dual airbags, and ABS. The Lancer GSR is powered by the same 1.6L four-cylinder engine found on the GLXi & Limited Saloon grades. It is paired to a INVECS 4-speed automatic transmission.


title: Mitsubishi Mirage

text: In 1999, Mitsubishi added another trim the "MX" to compete with Nissan's "Sentra Exalta" & Toyota's "Corolla SE-G". The MX trim is powered by a 1.6L inline-four engine coupled to a 5-speed automatic transmission with manu-matic shift mode respectively. It featured leather seats, automatic climate control and wood paneling.


title: Mitsubishi Mirage

text: By mid-2000, Mitsubishi axed the EL & GL model trims in favor of the Lancer "1.6 GLS" trim which featured redesigned front-end & cloth seats. It was launched in 2001.


title: Mitsubishi Mirage

text: This series also entered Indian production in June 1998 as the Lancer, assembled by Hindustan Motors. Available model variants were LX sedans with either the 1.5-liter gasoline engine or 2.0-liter diesel and a five-speed manual transmission. The gasoline option produces while the diesel only offered . In 2004, the 1.8-liter 4G93 gasoline engine was added, only in conjunction with a four-speed automatic transmission, while the power of the 1.5 was downgraded to . The Lancer was joined by the Lancer Cedia in 2006 and continued to be sold alongside that model until discontinued in 2012.


title: Mitsubishi Mirage

text: This generation Lancer entered production in the Chinese market as the Soueast Lioncel in March 2003 and was produced by Soueast Motors up to 2005. Pricing for the Lioncel ranged between 84,000 yuan and 159,800 yuan (12,150 to US$23,120) for the 2004 model year and 78,900 to 133,800 yuan (11,415 to US$19,360) for the 2005 model year. A separate car called the Mitsubishi Lancer was also produced by the manufacturer and a modified version was known as Mitsubishi Lancer S-Design and was shown at the Guangzhou Auto Show in 2014. Production for the Lancer started in May 2006 and ended in 2014 for the 2015 model year. The standard engine was the 1.6-litre "4G18" engine paired with a 5-speed manual gearbox for the Lancer Classic and Lioncel. A 4-speed automatic was available on the Lancer. Trim levels for the Lancer were the 1.6 SEi (manual and automatic), 1.6 EXi (manual and automatic) and 1.6 EXi Sports (manual and automatic) with price ranging from 94,800 yuan to 122,800 yuan (15,020 to US$19,460). The Lioncel also shares these trim levels.


title: Mitsubishi Mirage

text: Another variant called the Soueast Lingyue is a facelifted version of the Lancer and successor to the Lioncel and was produced by Soueast Motors from October 2008 to December 2019. The facelifted Lingyue was launched in August 2010. The Soueast Lingyue ran on a 1.5-litre "4G15" engine for the 2008 model year only where it was replaced by the 1.5-litre "4A91" engine for 2009 models onwards. The Lingyue comes with a 5-speed manual gearbox as standard and a CVT option was available from 2010 to 2014.


title: Mitsubishi Mirage

text: When Mitsubishi introduced a new independent generation of Lancer in 2000 (without a corresponding Mirage), the old Mirage-based sedan was discontinued in Japan, although production continued for export. The next phase in the Mirage's demise was the release of the Colt—a five-door hatchback—in 2002. The Colt replaced the Mirage hatchback, despite the latter being a three-door. Unlike its predecessor, the Colt featured a tall, upright design with a short engine compartment to maximize interior dimensions. Engines for the Colt comprised 1.1-liter three-cylinder, plus 1.3-, 1.5-, and 1.6-liter gasoline inline-fours with a standard five-speed manual and optional continuously variable transmission (automatic).


title: Mitsubishi Mirage

text: Sales in export markets did not occur until 2004, with production in Japan no longer being the primary source. European models were instead sourced from Born, the Netherlands with a three-door body produced exclusively at this factory from 2004. Also in 2004, the Colt Plus was launched as a longer version of the standard five-door with greater luggage capacity. Then in 2006, the range expanded further with the release of the Colt CZC—a convertible with a retractable hardtop roof. Colt convertibles were produced only at the Netherlands facility, with final assembly taking part with Pininfarina at Turin, Italy.


title: Mitsubishi Mirage

text: Manufacture of the Colt ended in 2012, with the successor model reverting to the Mirage name internationally. Unlike the Colt's expensive architecture shared with the Smart Forfour, the emphasis on the Mirage is low pricing to increase Mitsubishi's presence in emerging markets.


title: Mitsubishi Mirage

text: The Colt was renamed back to Mirage in 2012. The sixth generation was previewed as a concept car at the 2011 Geneva International Motor Show, with series production cars unveiled at the 2011 Tokyo Motor Show. For some European markets, the name Mitsubishi Space Star is used. The model code is A00, although in Australia it is referred to as the LA.


title: Mitsubishi Mirage

text: The Mirage is built at Mitsubishi Thailand's Laem Chabang plant, facility number three since 19 April 2012. The car is mainly developed as a response to the Eco Car policy endorsed by the Thailand government. The car effectively doubled Mitsubishi sales figures in the country. Shipments to Japan began in July, with the Australian hitting the market in January 2013. Mitsubishi Motors Philippines began manufacturing both the hatchback and G4 sedan variants of the Mirage for the country's market in January 2017.


title: Mitsubishi Mirage

text: In designing the Mirage, Mitsubishi's objectives were affordability (including in developing economies) and high efficiency. To aid efficiency, minimizing vehicle mass was one engineering focus. "Painstaking efforts to reduce weight", including the use of high-tensile steel in the body, resulted in a vehicle that is the lightest in its segment in some markets. In North America, it is the lightest 4-door car available (only the 2-passenger Smart Fortwo is lighter).


title: Mitsubishi Mirage

text: Reducing aerodynamic drag was another primary design goal. One of the car's aerodynamic features resulted in a new patent application. The result is the lowest drag coefficient (Cd) in its class. Depending on drivetrain and options, the car's Cd ranges from 0.27 to 0.31.


title: Mitsubishi Mirage

text: Early Japanese models has 1.0-litre 3-cylinder engine with Auto Stop & Go (AS&G), CVT and 165/65 R14 tires. The 1.0-litre three-cylinder car for the Japanese market achieves in the JC08 cycle and will have a sub-1 million yen price tag.


title: Mitsubishi Mirage

text: The Thai market model was unveiled at the 2012 Bangkok International Motor Show on 28 March 2012. The Thai model features the 1.2-litre three-cylinder engine with start-stop, fitted with a CVT or manual transmission.


title: Mitsubishi Mirage

text: In the Philippines, the Mirage was launched in mid-2012 and was initially offered in GLX and GLS grade levels. Both available with either 5-speed manual transmission or CVT. All models are powered by the 1.2-litre engine. In late 2013, the sedan version called G4 was added to the lineup and also available in the same 2 grades as the hatchback. In its first full year of sales (2013), the Mirage reached a place as the sixth best selling hatchback. The refreshed Mirage launched in the country in April 2016 and the G4 also launched in April 2018. In 2019, the GLS grade was removed from the lineup, leaving only the GLX as the sole grade.


title: Mitsubishi Mirage

text: In Indonesia, the Mirage was launched on 17 September 2012 and is imported from Thailand. It is offered in GLX, GLS and Exceed grade levels. The GLX grade is available with 5-speed manual transmission, while GLS and Exceed grades are available with CVT. All models are powered by the 1.2-litre engine. The Mirage Sport was launched on 19 January 2015. The facelifted Mirage was released on 26 July 2016. The Mirage was discontinued in the Indonesian market in 2018.


title: Mitsubishi Mirage

text: The North American edition was unveiled at the 2013 Salon International de l'auto de Montreal. Despite previous speculation, the car will be marketed as Mirage in the United States and Canada for the 2014 model year. Canada/U.S. models include 1.2-litre three-cylinder MIVEC engine, five-speed manual transmission or CVT, choice of eight body colors (Kiwi Green, Thunder Gray, Sapphire Blue, InfraRed, Cloud White, Starlight Silver, Plasma Purple and Mystic Black). There was no 2016 model year in the North American market.


title: Mitsubishi Mirage

text: At the 2015 LA Auto Show, Mitsubishi previewed the Mirage's 2017 facelift. The car received a new front end design, projector headlights with LED daytime running lights, and LED tail lights. The facelift results in a drag coefficient of 0.27"c". In addition, engine output was increased from 74 to 78 hp, the suspension was improved through better shock absorbers, revised spring rates, and uprated brakes (larger discs on front, drums on rear, and different friction material). The interior will also see numerous aesthetic changes from the steering wheel to the HVAC system and a new optional touchscreen infotainment system using Apple's CarPlay interface and a 300W Rockford Fosgate audio setup.


title: Mitsubishi Mirage

text: The second facelift Mirage was launched in Thailand on 18 November 2019, adding safety features such as forward collision mitigation system, radar sensing forward mitigation along with cruise control buttons on the steering wheel. Its bumper design has been revised to bear the design language of its other Mitsubishi models together with a projector headlamp with DRL and LED inlets for the tail-lamps. The updated Mirage debuted in North America in early 2021 as a 2021 model.


title: Mitsubishi Mirage

text: The four-door sedan version of the Mirage, known as Mitsubishi Attrage or Mitsubishi Mirage G4 in some markets, has been manufactured at Mitsubishi's Laem Chabang plant in Thailand since June 2013. While based on the hatchback, the sedan is unique from the back doors rearwards, and has revised front styling. The sedan was first introduced as a concept car at the 2013 Bangkok International Motor Show called the Concept G4 sedan. Like the hatchback, the sedan is offered with a 1.2-liter engine.


title: Mitsubishi Mirage

text: According to Masaaki Yamada, senior adviser for Mitsubishi Motors Philippines, the company used the Mirage G4 name in the Philippine market, as they claimed the "Attrage" nameplate has a negative connotation in the Filipino language. "Attrage" sounds too much like "atrás," Filipino or Spanish for "going backwards". The Mirage G4 was released in the Philippine dealerships in October 2013.


title: Mitsubishi Mirage

text: In Mexico, the Attrage is sold as the Dodge Attitude, replacing the Hyundai Accent (RB) from January 2015 model after Hyundai's arrival in the Mexican market.


title: Mitsubishi Mirage

text: The Attrage is sold in few Western European markets such as Austria, Switzerland, Belgium and Luxembourg. The engine is available as a 1.2-liter three-cylinder engine that produces 59 kW (80 hp). A continuously variable transmission is available as an option. The Attrage is also sold in Singapore, Turkey, Malaysia, Israel and the Middle East.


title: Mitsubishi Mirage

text: For the US market, the Mirage G4 sedan was available from spring 2016 as a 2017 model. It is available in ES and SE trims, with 7 airbags available as standard.


title: Mitsubishi Mirage

text: In Canada, sales of the G4 sedan ran 3 model years, from 2017 to 2019. It was cancelled owing to low sales relative to the hatchback (the G4 made up less than 20% of total Mirage sales in 2018).


title: Mitsubishi Mirage

text: Starting on 1 February 2019, the Mitsubishi Mirage G4 has been sold in Mexico alongside the return of Mitsubishi in the Mexican market, coexisting with the Dodge Attitude. It was facelifted in August 2020.


title: Mitsubishi Mirage

text: The Attrage received its facelift in Thailand on 18 November 2019 with the same front fascia as the second facelift Mirage hatchback.


title: Mitsubishi Mirage

text: In the Philippines, the Mirage G4 received its facelift on 28 August 2021. It is offered in the same trim models as the pre-facelift model: GLX (manual & CVT) and GLS (CVT only).


title: Mitsubishi Mirage

text: In January 2022, a limited-edition GLS Sport was introduced. Based on the GLS trim, the GLS Sport features sideskirts, grille garnish, and rear lip spoiler. Only 300 units were produced.


title: Mitsubishi Mirage

text: The limited-edition Black Series was introduced in November 2022. Based on the GLS trim, the Black Series features front grille red accent, black-painted side mirrors, and high-gloss black 15-inch alloy wheels. It is also packed with enhancements such as the new floor LED illumination and center console LED illumination, both in blue, it also comes with a center arm rest console and a trunk luggage tray as standard. Only 150 units will be produced.


title: Mitsubishi Mirage

text: The current Mirage has proven to be a polarizing design. It has been met with negative reviews in some markets, and praise in others. Favorable reviews highlight the efficiency of the design, while critics often illustrate the car's shortcomings, with a tendency to compare the Mirage with more expensive cars.


title: Mitsubishi Mirage

text: "Auto Express" and Ollie Kew of "Car Magazine" all gave the car a two out of five star rating. Peter Anderson of "The Motor Report" gave it two-and-a-half out of five stars. "What Car?" magazine rated the Mirage 3 out of 5 stars for "cost and verdict." Matt Jones of "Top Gear" magazine gave the Mirage an Overall Verdict of 3 out of 10. Sam Wollaston of "The Guardian" gave the car a Cool Factor rating of 3 out of 10. "Consumer Reports" placed the Mirage among the 10 Worst Cars of 2013 and "Top Gear" magazine placed the Mirage on its list of "The worst cars you can buy right now."


title: Mitsubishi Mirage

text: Jason Torchinsky of Jalopnik gave the 2014 Mirage an 8 out of 10 for Value and even went on to criticize critics of the Mirage for excessive criticism, saying ""I get the appeal of writing a bad review — they're a hell of a lot more fun to write than a good review... But you have to keep that critic-lust in check, sometimes, and try and really get to the truth of things.""


title: Mitsubishi Mirage

text: On the positive side, Kelley Blue Book gave the Mirage an overall rating of 6.2 (with a Consumer Rating of 9.4/10), quoting that "If the most important thing to you is getting the cheapest new car you can find with the most equipment and best possible fuel economy, you'll like the 2015 Mitsubishi Mirage." The Mirage was named one of "Forbes" magazine's 12 Greenest Cars of 2014, and was one of two non-hybrid vehicles on the list. In the Philippines, the Mirage was awarded the "2012–2013 Car of the Year" by the Car Awards Group. "Top Gear Philippines" rated the car 18 out of 20, and stated, "For the single person or young couple on a budget, the Mirage is still the sweetest deal in town." In Denmark, the Space Star received largely positive reviews, and was the fifth most sold car in January–February 2015. The Hispanic Motor Press awarded the Mirage as Best Subcompact in 2014 and recognized the Mirage G4 as Best Subcompact in 2017. Company Vehicle of New Zealand praises the Mirage, calling it "“an ideal city commuter which is absolutely effortless to slip into even the tightest of parking spaces”." The Automotive Science Group has recognized the Mirage for Best All-Around Performance and Best Economic Performance. Patrick Rall of Torque News praised the 2018 Mirage GT, noting it as a "great winter commuter car" with "lots of features". Brian Wong of Cars.com called the Mirage GT ""fun to drive"" and praised its light-weight design. Erik Shilling notes that after eight years on the market, "the Mirage is probably the best kind of car there is: a cheap car that functions, and isn’t pretending otherwise."


title: Mitsubishi Mirage

text: "(Sources: Facts & Figures 2013, Facts & Figures 2018, Facts & Figures 2019, Mitsubishi Motors website)"


title: Ancien Régime

text: The Ancien Régime (; ; ), also known as the Old Regime, was the political and social system of the Kingdom of France from the Late Middle Ages () until 1789 and the French Revolution, which abolished the feudal system of the French nobility (1790) and hereditary monarchy (1792). The Valois dynasty ruled during the Ancien Régime up until 1589 and was then replaced by the Bourbon dynasty. The term is occasionally used to refer to the similar feudal systems of the time elsewhere in Europe such as that of Switzerland.


title: Ancien Régime

text: The administrative and social structures of the Ancien Régime in France evolved across years of state-building, legislative acts (like the Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts), and internal conflicts. The Valois dynasty's attempts at reform and at re-establishing control over the scattered political centres of the country were hindered by the Wars of Religion from 1562 to 1598. During the Bourbon dynasty, much of the reigns of Henry IV () and Louis XIII () and the early years of Louis XIV () focused on administrative centralization. Despite the notion of "absolute monarchy" (typified by the king's right to issue orders through "lettres de cachet") and efforts to create a centralized state, Ancien Régime France remained a country of systemic irregularities: administrative, legal, judicial, and ecclesiastic divisions and prerogatives frequently overlapped, while the French nobility struggled to maintain their rights in the matters of local government and justice, and powerful internal conflicts (like the Fronde) protested against this centralization.


title: Ancien Régime

text: The drive for centralization related directly to questions of royal finances and the ability to wage war. The internal conflicts and dynastic crises of the 16th and the 17th centuries between Catholics and Protestants, the Habsburgs' internal family conflict, and the territorial expansion of France in the 17th century all demanded great sums, which needed to be raised by taxes, such as the land tax () and the tax on salt (), and by contributions of men and service from the nobility.


title: Ancien Régime

text: One key to the centralization was the replacing of personal patronage systems, which had been organised around the king and other nobles, by institutional systems that were constructed around the state. The appointments of , representatives of royal power in the provinces, greatly undermined the local control by regional nobles. The same was true of the greater reliance that was shown by the royal court on the as judges and royal counselors. The creation of regional had the same initial goal of facilitating the introduction of royal power into the newly assimilated territories, but as the gained in self-assurance, they started to become sources of disunity.


title: Ancien Régime

text: By the end of 1789 the term "ancien régime" was commonly used in France by journalists and legislators to refer to the institutions of French life before the Revolution. It first appeared in print in English in 1794 (two years after the inauguration of the First French Republic) and was originally pejorative. Simon Schama has observed that "virtually as soon as the term was coined, 'old regime' was automatically freighted with associations of both traditionalism and senescence. It conjured up a society so encrusted with anachronisms that only a shock of great violence could free the living organism within. Institutionally torpid, economically immobile, culturally atrophied and socially stratified, this 'old regime' was incapable of self-modernization".


title: Ancien Régime

text: The Nine Years' War (1688–97) between France and a coalition of Austria and the Holy Roman Empire, the Dutch Republic, Spain, England and Savoy was fought in continental Europe and on the surrounding seas, and in Ireland, North America and India. It was the first truly global war.


title: Ancien Régime

text: Louis XIV emerged from the Franco-Dutch War in 1678 as the most powerful monarch in Europe and an absolute ruler with numerous military victories. Using a combination of aggression, annexation and quasilegal means, he set about extending his gains to stabilize and strengthen France's frontiers, culminating in the brief War of the Reunions (1683–1684). The resulting Truce of Ratisbon guaranteed France's new borders for 20 years, but Louis XIV's subsequent actions, notably his revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, led to the deterioration of his military and political dominance. Louis XIV's decision to cross the Rhine in September 1688 was designed to extend his influence and to pressure the Holy Roman Empire into accepting his territorial and dynastic claims, but Leopold I and the German princes resolved to resist, and the States General and William III brought the Dutch and the English into the war against France. Louis XIV faced a powerful coalition aimed at curtailing his ambitions.


title: Ancien Régime

text: The main fighting took place around France's borders in the Spanish Netherlands, the Rhineland, the Duchy of Savoy, and Catalonia. The fighting generally favoured Louis XIV's armies, but by 1696, France was in the grip of an economic crisis. The maritime powers (England and the Dutch Republic) were also financially exhausted, and when Savoy defected from the alliance, all of the parties were keen for a negotiated settlement. By the terms of the Treaty of Ryswick (1697), Louis XIV retained the whole of Alsace, but was forced to return Lorraine to its ruler and to give up any gains on the right bank of the Rhine. Also, Louis XIV accepted William III as the rightful King of England, and the Dutch acquired their barrier fortress system in the Spanish Netherlands to help secure their own borders. However, with the ailing and childless Charles II of Spain approaching his end, a new conflict over the inheritance of the Spanish Empire would soon embroil Louis XIV and the Grand Alliance in a final war: the War of the Spanish Succession.


title: Ancien Régime

text: Spain had a number of major assets apart from its homeland. It controlled important territory in Europe and the New World. Spain's American colonies produced enormous quantities of silver, brought to Spain every few years in convoys.


title: Ancien Régime

text: Spain also had many weaknesses. Its domestic economy had little business, industry or advanced craftsmanship and was poor. Spain had to import practically all of its weapons and its large army was poorly trained and poorly equipped. Spain had a surprisingly small navy since seamanship was a low priority for the elites. Local and regional governments and the local nobility, controlled most of the decisionmaking. The central government was quite weak, with a mediocre bureaucracy, and few able leaders. King Charles II reigned 1665 to 1700, but was in very poor physical and mental health.


title: Ancien Régime

text: As King Charles II had no children, the question of who would succeed to the Spanish throne unleashed a major war. The Vienna-based Habsburg family, to which Charles II belonged, proposed its own candidate for the throne. However, the Bourbons, the ruling family of France, instinctively opposed expansions of Habsburg power within Europe and had their own candidate: Philip, the grandson of the powerful Louis XIV. That was a confrontation between two different styles of Ancien Regime, the French style and the Spanish style, or Habsburg style.


title: Ancien Régime

text: Spain's silver and its inability to protect its assets made it a highly-visible target for ambitious Europeans. For generations, Englishmen contemplated capturing the Spanish treasure fleet, a feat that had been accomplished only once: in 1628 by the Dutchman Piet Hein. English mariners nevertheless seriously pursued the opportunities for privateering and trade in Spain's colonies.


title: Ancien Régime

text: As he neared his death, Charles II bequeathed his throne to the Bourbon candidate, the future Philip V of Spain. Philip's grandfather, Louis XIV, eagerly endorsed the choice and made unilateral aggressive moves to safeguard the viability of his family's new possessions, such as moving the French army into the Spanish Netherlands and securing exclusive trading rights for the French in Spanish America. However, a coalition of enemies opposed to that rapid expansion of French power quickly formed, and a major European war broke out from 1701 to 1714.


title: Ancien Régime

text: To France's enemies, the notion of France gaining enormous strength by taking over Spain and all its European and overseas possessions was anathema. Furthermore, the prospect of capturing Spanish territories in the New World proved very attractive. France's enemies formed a Grand Alliance, led by the Holy Roman Empire's Leopold I, which included Prussia and most of the other German states, the Dutch Republic, Portugal, Savoy (in Italy) and England. The opposing alliance was primarily France and Spain but also included a few smaller German princes and dukes in Italy. Extensive back-and-forth fighting took place in the Netherlands, but the dimensions of the war once again changed when both Emperor Leopold and his son and successor, Joseph, died. That left Archduke Charles, the second son of Leopold, younger brother to Joseph, as the Alliance candidate for both king of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor.


title: Ancien Régime

text: Since such a union between Spain and the Holy Roman Empire would be too powerful in the eyes of Charles VI's allies, most of the allies quickly concluded a separate peace with France. After another year of fruitless campaigning, Charles VI did the same and abandoned his desire to become the king of Spain.


title: Ancien Régime

text: The 1713 Treaty of Utrecht resolved all these issues. France gave up Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. Louis XIV's grandson became King Philip V of Spain and kept all of his overseas colonies but renounced any rights to the French throne. Spain lost its European holdings outside the homeland itself.


title: Ancien Régime

text: The former members of the alliance also profited from the war. The Dutch maintained their independence in the face of French aggression. The Habsburgs picked up territory north of Austria and in Italy, including the Spanish Netherlands and Naples. However, the greatest beneficiary of the war was Great Britain, since in addition to extensive extra-European territorial gains at the expense of Spain and France, it established further checks to French expansion within the continent by moderately strengthening its European allies.


title: Ancien Régime

text: The quarter-century after the Treaty of Utrecht was peaceful, with no major wars. The main powers exhausted themselves in warfare, wand suffered many deaths, disabled veterans, ruined navies, high pension costs, heavy loans and high taxes. In 1683, indirect taxes had brought in 118,000,000 livres, but by 1714, these revenues had plunged to only 46,000,000 livres.


title: Ancien Régime

text: Louis XIV, with his eagerness for warfare, was gone and replaced by a small sickly child, the last Bourbon survivor. This death had the potential to throw France into another round of warfare. Louis XV lived until the 1770s. France's main foreign policy decisionmaker was Cardinal Fleury, who recognised that France's need to rebuild and so pursued a peaceful policy.


title: Ancien Régime

text: France had a poorly-designed taxation system in which tax farmers kept much of the money, and the treasury was always short. The banking system in Paris was undeveloped, and the treasury was forced to borrow at very high interest rates. London's financial system proved strikingly competent in funding not only the British Army but also those of its allies. Queen Anne was dead, and her successor, King George I, was a Hanoverian who moved his court to London but never became fluent in English and surrounded himself with German advisors. They spent much of their time and most of their attention on Hanoverian affairs. He too was threatened by an unstable throne, since the Stuart pretenders, long supported by Louis XIV, threatened repeatedly to invade through Ireland or Scotland and had significant internal support from the Tory faction. However, Sir Robert Walpole was the dominant decision-maker from 1722 to 1740, in a role that would later be called prime minister. Walpole strongly rejected militaristic options and promoted a peace program that was agreed to by Fleury, and the two powers formed an alliance.


title: Ancien Régime

text: The Dutch Republic was much reduced in power and so agreed with Britain's idea of peace. In Vienna, the Holy Roman Empire's Habsburg emperors bickered with the new Bourbon king of Spain, Philip V, over Habsburg control of most of Italy, but relations with France were undramatic.


title: Ancien Régime

text: In the mid-15th century France was smaller than it is today, and numerous border provinces (such as Roussillon, Cerdagne, Conflent, Vallespir, Capcir, Calais, Béarn, Navarre, County of Foix, Flanders, Artois, Lorraine, Alsace, Trois-Évêchés, Franche-Comté, Savoy, Bresse, Bugey, Gex, Nice, Provence, Dauphiné and Brittany) were autonomous or belonged to the Holy Roman Empire, the Crown of Aragon or the Kingdom of Navarra; there were also foreign enclaves like the Comtat Venaissin.


title: Ancien Régime

text: In addition, certain provinces within France were ostensibly the personal fiefs of noble families. Notably the Bourbonnais, Forez and Auvergne were held by the House of Bourbon until the provinces were forcibly integrated into the royal domain in 1527 after the fall of Charles III, Duke of Bourbon.


title: Ancien Régime

text: From the late 15th century to the late 17th century and again in the 1760s, French territory greatly expanded and it attempted to better integrate its provinces into an administrative whole.


title: Ancien Régime

text: Despite centralization efforts of the kings, France remained a patchwork of local privileges and historical differences. The arbitrary power of the absolute monarchy was much limited by historic and regional particularities. Administrative (including taxation), legal (parlement), judicial and ecclesiastic divisions and prerogatives frequently overlapped (for example, French bishoprics and dioceses rarely coincided with administrative divisions).


title: Ancien Régime

text: Certain provinces and cities had won special privileges, such as lower rates for the "gabelle" or salt tax. Southern France was governed by written law adapted from the Roman legal system, but northern France used common law, codified in 1453 into a written form.


title: Ancien Régime

text: The representative of the king in his provinces and cities was the . Royal officers chosen from the highest nobility, provincial and city governors (oversight of provinces and cities was frequently combined) were predominantly military positions in charge of defense and policing. Provincial governors, also called , also had the ability to convoking provincial , provincial estates and municipal bodies.


title: Ancien Régime

text: The title first appeared under Charles VI. The Ordinance of Blois in 1579 reduced their number to 12, and an ordinance of 1779 increased their number to 39 (18 first-class governors and 21 second-class governors). Although in principle, they were the king's representatives, and their charges could be revoked at the king's will, some governors had installed themselves and their heirs as a provincial dynasty.


title: Ancien Régime

text: The governors reached the height of their power from the mid-16th to the mid-17th century. Their role in provincial unrest during the civil wars led Cardinal Richelieu to create the more tractable positions of "intendants" of finance, policing and justice, and in the 18th century, the role of provincial governors was greatly curtailed.


title: Ancien Régime

text: In an attempt to reform the system, new divisions were created. The , commonly known as , were initially only taxation districts (see "state finances" below). The first 16 were created in 1542 by edict of Henry II. Their role steadily increased, and by the mid-17th century, the were under the authority of an and were a vehicle for the expansion of royal power in matters of justice, taxation and policing. By the revolution, there were 36 , the last two being created in 1784.


title: Ancien Régime

text: The desire for more efficient tax collection was one of the major causes for French administrative and royal centralisation during the early modern period. The "taille" became a major source of royal income. Exempted were clergy and nobles (except for non-noble lands held in "pays d'état", see below), officers of the crown, military personnel, magistrates, university professors and students, and certain cities ("villes franches") such as Paris.


title: Ancien Régime

text: The provinces were of three sorts, the , the and the . In the (the longest-held possessions of the French crown; some of the provinces had held the equivalent autonomy of a but had lost it through the effects of royal reforms) the assessment and collection of taxes were trusted to elected officials (at least originally, since later on those positions were bought), and the tax was generally "personal" and so was attached to non-noble individuals.


title: Ancien Régime

text: In the ("provinces with provincial estates"), Brittany, Languedoc, Burgundy, Auvergne, Béarn, Dauphiné, Provence and portions of Gascony, such as Bigorre, Comminges and the Quatre-Vallées, recently acquired provinces that had been able to maintain a certain local autonomy in terms of taxation, the assessment of the tax was established by local councils and the tax was generally "real" and so was attached to non-noble lands (nobles with such lands were required to pay taxes on them). were recently conquered lands that had their own local historical institutions (they were similar to the under which they are sometimes grouped), but taxation was overseen by the royal intendant.


title: Ancien Régime

text: Taxation districts had gone through a variety of mutations since the 14th century. Before the 14th century, oversight of the collection of royal taxes had fallen generally to the and in their circumscriptions. Reforms in the 14th and the 15th centuries saw France's royal financial administration run by two financial boards, which worked in a collegial manner: the four (also called or ) oversaw the collection of taxes (, , etc.) by tax-collecting agents () and the four (Treasurers) oversaw revenues from royal lands (the "domaine royal").


title: Ancien Régime

text: Together, they were the . The four members of each board were divided by geographical districts (although the term appears only in the late 15th century). The areas were named Languedoïl, Languedoc, Outre-Seine-and-Yonne, and Nomandy (the last was created in 1449, the other three earlier), with the directors of the "Languedoïl" region typically having an honorific preeminence. By 1484, the number of généralités had increased to six.


title: Ancien Régime

text: In the 16th century, the kings of France, in an effort to exert more direct control over royal finances and to circumvent the double board, which was accused of poor oversight, made numerous administrative reforms, including the restructuring of the financial administration and increasing the number of . In 1542, France was divided into 16 . The number increased to 21 at the end of the 16th century and to 36 at the time of the French Revolution; the last two were created in 1784.


title: Ancien Régime

text: The administration of the of the Renaissance went through a variety of reforms. In 1577, Henry III established 5 treasurers () in each généralité who formed a bureau of finances. In the 17th century, oversight of the was subsumed by the intendants of finance, justice and police. The expression and became roughly synonymous.


title: Ancien Régime

text: Until the late 17th century, tax collectors were called . In 1680, the system of the "Ferme générale" was established, a franchised customs and excise operation in which individuals bought the right to collect the taille on behalf of the king, through six-year adjudications (certain taxes like the and the had been farmed out in this way as early as 1604). The major tax collectors in that system were known as the ('farmers-general").


title: Ancien Régime

text: The "taille" was only one of a number of taxes. There also existed the (a tax for military purposes), a national salt tax (the ), national tariffs (the ) on various products (wine, beer, oil and other goods), local tariffs on speciality products (the ) or levied on products entering the city (the ) or sold at fairs and local taxes. Finally, the church benefited from a mandatory tax or tithe, the .


title: Ancien Régime

text: Louis XIV created several additional tax systems, including the , which began in 1695 and touched every person, including nobles and the clergy although exemption could be bought for a large one-time sum and the "dixième" (1710–1717, restarted in 1733), which enacted to support the military and was a true tax on income and on property value. In 1749, under Louis XV, a new tax based on the , the , was enacted to reduce the royal deficit and continued for the rest of the Ancien Régime.


title: Ancien Régime

text: Another key source of state financing was through charging fees for state positions (such as most members of parlements, magistrates, and financial officers). Many of the fees were quite high, but some of the offices conferred nobility and could be financially advantageous. The use of offices to seek profit had become standard practice as early as the 12th and the 13th centuries. A law in 1467 made these offices irrevocable except through the death, resignation or forfeiture of the title holder, and the offices, once bought, tended to become hereditary charges that were passed on within families with a fee for transfer of title.


title: Ancien Régime

text: In an effort to increase revenue, the state often turned to the creation of new offices. Before it was made illegal in 1521, it had been possible to leave the date that the transfer of title was to take effect open-ended. In 1534, a rule adapted from church practice made the successor's right void if the preceding office holder died within forty days of the transfer, and the office returned to the state. However, a new fee, the protected against that rule. In 1604, Sully created a new tax, the or "annual tax" of a sixtieth of the official charge, which permitted the titleholder to be free of the forty-day rule. The and the venality of offices became key concerns in the parliamentarian revolts of the 1640s called the Fronde.


title: Ancien Régime

text: The state also demanded a "free gift", which the church collected from holders of ecclesiastic offices through taxes called the (roughly a twentieth of the official charge, created under Francis I).


title: Ancien Régime

text: State finances also relied heavily on borrowing, both private (from the great banking families in Europe) and public. The most important public source for borrowing was through the system of of Paris, a kind of government bond system offering investors annual interest. The system first came to use in 1522 under Francis I.


title: Ancien Régime

text: Until 1661, the head of the financial system in France was generally the . That year, the Nicolas Fouquet fell from power, and the position was replaced by the less powerful .


title: Ancien Régime

text: Justice in seigneurial lands, including those held by the church or that lay within cities, was generally overseen by the seigneur or his delegated officers. In the 15th century, much of the seigneur's legal purview was given to the "bailliages" or "sénéchaussées" and the "présidiaux", leaving only affairs concerning seigneurial dues and duties, and small affairs of local justice. Only certain seigneurs, those with the power of "haute justice" (seigneurial justice was divided into "high" "middle" and "low" justice), could enact the death penalty and only with the consent of the "présidiaux".


title: Ancien Régime

text: Crimes of desertion, highway robbery and mendicants (so-called "cas prévôtaux") were under the supervision of the prévôt des maréchaux, who exacted quick and impartial justice. In 1670, their purview was overseen by the "présidiaux".


title: Ancien Régime

text: The national judicial system was made up of tribunals called "bailliages" in northern France and "sénéchaussées" in southern France. These tribunals numbered around 90 in the 16th century and far more at the end of the 18th century, were supervised by a "lieutenant général" and were subdivided into:


title: Ancien Régime

text: To reduce the case load in the parlements, certain "bailliages" were given extended powers by Henry II of France, which were called présidiaux.


title: Ancien Régime

text: The prévôts or their equivalent were first-level judges for non-nobles and ecclesiastics. In the exercise of their legal functions, they sat alone but had to consult with certain lawyers called "avocats" or "procureurs", whom they chose themselves. To use the technical phrase, these lawyers were "summoned to their council". Appeals of their sentences went to the "bailliages", who also had jurisdiction in the first instance over actions brought against nobles. "Bailliages" and "présidiaux" were also the first court for certain crimes called "cas royaux" which had formerly been under the supervision of the local seigneurs: sacrilege, lèse-majesté, kidnapping, rape, heresy, alteration of money, sedition, insurrection and the illegal carrying of arms. Appeals of a "bailliage"s decisions went to the regional parlements.


title: Ancien Régime

text: The most important of the royal tribunals was the "prévôté" and présidial of Paris, the "Châtelet", which was overseen by the "prévôt" of Paris, civil and criminal lieutenants, and a royal officer in charge of maintaining public order in the capital, the Lieutenant General of Police of Paris.


title: Ancien Régime

text: The following were "cours souveraines", or superior courts, whose decisions could be revoked only by "the king in his conseil" (see administration section below).


title: Ancien Régime

text: One of the established principles of the French monarchy was that the king could not act without the advice of his counsel, and the formula "le roi en son conseil" expressed that deliberative aspect. The administration of the French state in the early modern period went through a long evolution, as a truly-administrative apparatus, relying on old nobility, newer chancellor nobility ("noblesse de robe") and administrative professionals, was substituted to the feudal clientelist system.


title: Ancien Régime

text: Under Charles VIII and Louis XII, the Conseil du Roi (King's Counsel) was dominated by members of twenty or so noble or rich families. Under Francis I the number of counsellors increased to roughly 70 individuals (although the old nobility was then proportionally more important than had been in the previous century). The most important positions in the court were those of the Great Officers of the Crown of France, headed by the connétable (chief military officer of the realm) until it was eliminated in 1627) and the chancellor.


title: Ancien Régime

text: The royal administration during the Renaissance was divided between a small counsel (the "secret" and later "high" counsel) of 6 or fewer members (3 members in 1535, 4 in 1554) for important matters of state and a larger counsel for judicial or financial affairs. Francis I was sometimes criticised for relying too heavily on a small number of advisors, and Henry II, Catherine de Medici and their sons found themselves frequently unable to negotiate between the opposing Guise and Montmorency families in their counsel.


title: Ancien Régime

text: Over time, the decisionmaking apparatus of the council was divided into several royal counsels. Its subcouncils can be generally grouped as "governmental councils", "financial councils" and "judicial and administrative councils". With the names and subdivisions of the 17th and 18th centuries, the subcouncils were the following:


title: Ancien Régime

text: In addition to the above administrative institutions, the king was also surrounded by an extensive personal and court retinue (royal family, valet de chambres, guards, honorific officers), regrouped under the name "Maison du Roi".


title: Ancien Régime

text: At the death of Louis XIV, the Regent Philippe II, Duke of Orléans abandoned several of the above administrative structures, most notably the Secretaries of State, which were replaced by councils. That system of government, called the Polysynody, lasted from 1715 to 1718.


title: Ancien Régime

text: Under Henry IV and Louis XIII, the administrative apparatus of the court and its councils was expanded and the proportion of the "noblesse de robe" increased and culminated in the following positions during the 17th century:


title: Ancien Régime

text: Royal administration in the provinces had been the role of the "bailliages" and "sénéchaussées" in the Middle Ages, but that declined in the early modern period, and by the late 18th century, the "bailliages" served only a judicial function. The main source of royal administrative power in the provinces in the 16th and the early 17th centuries fell to the (who represented "the presence of the king in his province"), positions which had long been held by only the highest ranked families in the realm. With the civil wars of the early modern period, the king increasing turned to more tractable and subservient emissaries, which caused the growth of the provincial under Louis XIII and Louis XIV. Indendants were chosen from among the maître des requêtes. Those attached to a province had jurisdiction over finances, justice and policing.


title: Ancien Régime

text: By the 18th century, royal administrative power had been firmly established in the provinces, despite protestations by local parlements. In addition to their role as appellate courts, regional parlements had gained the privilege to register the edicts of the king and to present the king with official complaints concerning the edicts. They thus had acquired a limited role as the representative voice of (predominantly) the magistrate class. A refusal by the parlement to register the edicts (frequently concerning fiscal matters) allowed the king could to impose it's registration through a royal assize ("lit de justice").


title: Ancien Régime

text: The other traditional representatives bodies in the realm were the États généraux (created in 1302), which reunited the three estates of the realm (clergy, nobility and the third estate) and the États provinciaux (Provincial Estates). The États généraux (convoked in this period in 1484, 1560–61, 1576–1577, 1588–1589, 1593, 1614 and 1789) had been reunited during fiscal crises or convoked by parties malcontent with royal prerogatives (the Ligue, the Huguenots), but they had no true power since dissensions between the three orders rendered them weak and they were dissolved before having completed their work. As a sign of French absolutism, they ceased to be convoked from 1614 to 1789. The provincial estates proved to be more effective and were convoked by the king to respond to fiscal and tax policies.


title: Ancien Régime

text: The French monarchy was irrevocably linked to the Catholic Church (the formula was "la France est la fille aînée de l'église", or "France is the eldest daughter of the church"), and French theorists of the divine right of kings and sacerdotal power in the Renaissance had made those links explicit. Henry IV was able to ascend to the throne only after abjuring Protestantism. The symbolic power of the Catholic monarch was apparent in his crowning (the king was anointed with blessed oil in Rheims) and he was popularly believed to be able to cure scrofula by laying on his hands (accompanied by the formula "the king touches you, but God heals you").


title: Ancien Régime

text: In 1500, France had 14 archbishoprics (Lyon, Rouen, Tours, Sens, Bourges, Bordeaux, Auch, Toulouse, Narbonne, Aix-en-Provence, Embrun, Vienne, Arles and Rheims) and 100 bishoprics. By the 18th century, archbishoprics and bishoprics had expanded to a total of 139 (see List of Ancien Régime dioceses of France). The upper levels of the French church were made up predominantly of old nobility, both from provincial families and from royal court families, and many of the offices had become "de facto" hereditary possessions, with some members possessing multiple offices. In addition to the fiefs that church members possessed as seigneurs, the church also possessed seigneurial lands in its own right and enacted justice upon them.


title: Ancien Régime

text: In the early the 16th century, the secular clergy (curates, vicars, canons etc.) accounted for around 100,000 individuals in France.


title: Ancien Régime

text: Other temporal powers of the church included playing a political role as the first estate in the "États Généraux" and the "États Provinciaux" (Provincial Assemblies) and in Provincial Conciles or Synods convoked by the king to discuss religious issues. The church also claimed a prerogative to judge certain crimes, most notably heresy, although the Wars of Religion did much to place that crime in the purview of the royal courts and parliament. Finally, abbots, cardinals and other prelates were frequently employed by the kings as ambassadors, members of his councils (such as Richelieu and Mazarin) and in other administrative positions.


title: Ancien Régime

text: The faculty of theology of Paris (often called the Sorbonne), maintained a censorship board, which reviewed publications for their religious orthodoxy. The Wars of Religion saw their control over censorship however pass to the parliament and, in the 17th century to the royal censors, although the church maintained a right to petition.


title: Ancien Régime

text: The church was the primary provider of schools (primary schools and "colleges") and hospitals ("hôtel-Dieu", the Sisters of Charity) and distributor of relief to the poor in pre-revolutionary France.


title: Ancien Régime

text: The Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges (1438, suppressed by Louis XI but brought back by the États Généraux of Tours in 1484) gave the election of bishops and abbots to the cathedral chapter houses and abbeys of France, thus stripping the pope of effective control of the French church and permitting the beginning of a Gallican church. However, in 1515, Francis I signed a new agreement with Pope Leo X, the Concordat of Bologna, which gave the king the right to nominate candidates and the pope the right of investiture. The agreement infuriated Gallicans but gave the king control over important ecclesiastical offices with which to benefit nobles.


title: Ancien Régime

text: Although exempted from the taille, the church was required to pay the crown a tax called the "free gift" ("don gratuit"), which it collected from its office holders, at roughly a twentieth the price of the office (that was the "décime", reapportioned every five years). In its turn, the church exacted a mandatory tithe from its parishioners, called the "dîme".


title: Ancien Régime

text: In the Counter-Reformation, the French church created numerous religious orders such as the Jesuits and made great improvements in the quality of its parish priests; the first decades of the 17th century were characterized by a massive outpouring of devotional texts and religious fervor, exemplified in Saint Francis of Sales and Saint Vincent de Paul. Although the Edict of Nantes (1598) permitted the existence of Protestant churches in the realm (characterized as "a state within a state"), over the next eighty years the rights of the Huguenots slowly eroded, until Louis XIV finally revoked the edict in 1685, which caused a massive emigration of Huguenots to other countries. Religious practices that veered too close to Protestantism (like Jansenism) or to the mystical (like Quietism) were also severely suppressed, as were libertinage or overt atheism.


title: Ancien Régime

text: Regular clergy (those in Catholic religious orders) in France numbered into the tens of thousands in the 16th century. Some orders, like the Benedictines, were largely rural; others, like the Dominicans (also called "Jacobins") and the Franciscans (also called "cordeliers") operated in cities.


title: Ancien Régime

text: Although the church came under attack in the 18th century by the philosophers of the Enlightenment and recruitment of clergy and monastic orders dropped after 1750, figures show that on the whole, the population remained a profoundly Catholic country (absenteeism from services did not exceed 1% in the middle of the century). At the eve of the revolution, the church possessed upwards of 7% of the country's land (figures vary) and generated yearly revenues of 150 million livres.


title: Ancien Régime

text: Louis XIV supported the Gallican Church to give the government a greater role than the pope in choosing bishops and the revenues from vacant bishoprics. There would be no inquisition in France, and papal decrees only held sway after the government approved them. Louis avoided schism and wanted more royal power over the French Church, but did not want to break free of Rome. The pope likewise recognized the "most Christian king" was a powerful ally, who could not be alienated.


title: Ancien Régime

text: Until the French Revolution, the monastic community constituted a central element of the economic, social, and religious life of many localities under the Old Regime. From the end of the Wars of Religion to the French Revolution, Menat, a Cluniac abbey dating back to 1107, ruled over the Sioule Valley in the northwest region of the Clermont diocese. The monks were large landholders and developed a diversified and complex set of links with their neighbors. They received seigniorial rights; provided work to the rural poor and were in daily contact with notaries public, merchants, and surgeons. While they did not directly manage the religious life of the faithful, which was done by parish priests, monks were a motivating force in it by setting up of a parish clergy, providing alms and social services and playing the role of intercessors.


title: Ancien Régime

text: Communities of nuns in France on the eve of Revolution had on average 25 members and a median age of 48 years. Nuns were both entering the profession later and living longer than ever. In general, they had little wealth. Recruitment varied from region to region and by convent lifestyle (active or contemplative, austere or opulent, lower class or middle class). The nature of male and female monasticism differed greatly in France both before and during the revolution. Convents tended to be more isolated and less centrally controlled, which made for greater diversity among them than among male monasteries.


title: Ancien Régime

text: French Protestantism, which was largely Calvinist, derived its support from the lesser nobles and trading classes. Its two main strongholds were southwestern France and Normandy, but even there, Catholics were a majority. Protestantism in France was considered to be a grave threat to national unity, as the Huguenot minority felt a closer affinity with German and Dutch Calvinists than with its fellow Frenchmen. In an effort to cement their position, Huguenots often allied with France's enemies. The animosity between the two sides led to the French Wars of Religion and the tragic St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre. The religious wars ended in 1593, when the Huguenot Henry of Navarre (1553–1610), who was already effectively king of France, became a Catholic and was recognized by both Catholics and Protestants as King Henry IV (reigned 1589–1610).


title: Ancien Régime

text: The main provisions of the Edict of Nantes (1598), which Henry IV had issued as a charter of religious freedoms for the Huguenots, allowed Huguenots to hold religious services in certain towns in each province, allowed them to control and fortify eight cities, established special courts to try Huguenots, and gave Huguenots the same civil rights as Catholics.


title: Ancien Régime

text: Military privileges were incorporated in the edict to allay the fears of the minority. Over time, those privileges were clearly open to abuse. In 1620, the Huguenots proclaimed a constitution for the "Republic of the Reformed Churches of France", and Prime Minister Cardinal Richelieu (1585–1642) invoked the full powers of the state and captured La Rochelle after a long siege in 1628. The next year, the Treaty of Alais left the Huguenots their religious freedom but revoked their military freedoms.


title: Ancien Régime

text: Montpellier was among the most important of the 66 "villes de sûreté" that the 1598 edict had granted to the Huguenots. The city's political institutions and university were handed over to the Huguenots. Tension with Paris led to a siege by the royal army in 1622. Peace terms called for the dismantling of the city's fortifications. A royal citadel was built, and the university and consulate were taken over by the Catholics. Even before the Edict of Alès, Protestant rule was dead and the "ville de sûreté" was no more.


title: Ancien Régime

text: By 1620 the Huguenots were on the defensive, and the government increasingly applied pressure. A series of small civil wars that broke out in southern France between 1610 and 1635 were long considered by historians to be regional squabbles between rival noble families. New analysis shows that the civil wars were in fact religious in nature and remnants of the French Wars of Religion, which had largely ended by the Edict of Nantes. Small wars in the provinces of Languedoc and Guyenne had Catholics and Calvinists use destruction of churches, iconoclasm, forced conversions and the execution of heretics as weapons of choice.


title: Ancien Régime

text: Louis XIV acted more and more aggressively to force the Huguenots to convert. At first, he sent missionaries, which were backed by a fund to reward converts to Catholicism financially. Then, he imposed penalties, closed Huguenots' schools and excluded them from favorite professions. Escalating the attack, he tried to convert the Huguenots by force by sending armed dragonnades (soldiers) to occupy and loot their houses. Finally, the 1685 Edict of Fontainebleau revoked the Edict of Nantes.


title: Ancien Régime

text: The revocation forbade Protestant services, required children to be educated as Catholics and prohibited most Huguenot emigration. That proved disastrous to the Huguenots and costly for France by precipitating civil bloodshed, ruining commerce and resulting in the illegal flight from the country of about 180,000 Protestants, many of whom became intellectuals, doctors and business leaders in England, Scotland, the Netherlands Prussia and South Africa; also, 4000 went to the American colonies.


title: Ancien Régime

text: The English welcomed the French refugees by providing money from both government and private agencies to aid their relocation. The Huguenots who stayed in France became Catholics and were called "new converts". Only a few Protestant villages remained in isolated areas.


title: Ancien Régime

text: By the 1780s, Protestants comprised about 700,000 people, or 2% of the population. It was no longer a favorite religion of the elite since most Protestants were peasants. Protestantism was still illegal. The law was seldom enforced but could be a threat or a nuisance to Protestants.


title: Ancien Régime

text: Calvinists lived primarily in the southern France, and about 200,000 Lutherans lived in Alsace, where the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia still protected them.


title: Ancien Régime

text: In addition, there were about 40,000 to 50,000 Jews in France, chiefly centred in Bordeaux, Metz and a few other cities. They had very limited rights and opportunities, apart from the moneylending business, but their status was legal.


title: Ancien Régime

text: Political power was widely dispersed among the elites. The law courts called "parlements" were powerful, especially that of France. However, the king had only about 10,000 officials in royal service: very few indeed for a large country with very slow internal communications over an inadequate road system. Travel was usually faster by ocean ship or river boat. The different estates of the realm (the clergy, the nobility, and commoners) occasionally met together in the Estates General, but in practice, the Estates General had no power since it could petition the king but not pass laws itself.


title: Ancien Régime

text: The Catholic Church controlled about 40% of the country's wealth, which was tied up in long-term endowments that could be added to but not reduced. The king, not the pope, nominated bishops, but typically had to negotiate with noble families that had close ties to local monasteries and church establishments.


title: Ancien Régime

text: The nobility came second in terms of wealth but had no unity. Each noble had his own lands, his own network of regional connections and his own military force.


title: Ancien Régime

text: The cities had a quasi-independent status and were largely controlled by the leading merchants and guilds. Paris was by far the largest city, with 220,000 people in 1547 and a history of steady growth. Lyon and Rouen each had about 40,000 population, but Lyon had a powerful banking community and a vibrant culture. Bordeaux was next, with only 20,000 population in 1500.


title: Ancien Régime

text: Peasants made up the vast majority of the population, and in many cases had well-established rights the authorities had to respect. In 1484, about 97% of France's 13 million people lived in rural villages. In 1700, at least 80% of the population of 20 million were peasants.


title: Ancien Régime

text: In the 17th century, peasants had ties to the market economy, provided much of the capital investment necessary for agricultural growth and frequently changed villages or towns. Geographic mobility, directly tied to the market and the need for investment capital, was the main path to social mobility. The stable core of French society, town guildspeople and village labourers, included cases of staggering social and geographic continuity, but even that core required regular renewal.


title: Ancien Régime

text: Accepting the existence of both of those societies, the constant tension between them and extensive geographic and social mobility tied to a market economy were the key to the evolution of the social structure, the economy and even the political system of early modern France. The Annales School paradigm underestimated the role of the market economy and failed to explain the nature of capital investment in the rural economy and grossly exaggerated social stability. Demands by peasants played a major role in fashioning the early stages of the French Revolution in 1789. The role of women has recently received attention, especially regarding their religiosity.


title: Ancien Régime

text: In 1789, the Ancien Régime was violently overthrown by the French Revolution. Although France in 1785 faced economic difficulties that concerned mostly the equitability of taxation, it was one of the richest and most powerful nations of Europe. The French people also enjoyed more political freedom and a lower incidence of arbitrary punishment than many of their fellow Europeans.


title: Ancien Régime

text: However, Louis XVI, his ministers, and the widespread French nobility had become immensely unpopular because the peasants and, to a lesser extent, the "bourgeoisie" were burdened with ruinously high taxes, which were levied to support wealthy aristocrats and their sumptuous lifestyles.


title: Ancien Régime

text: Historians explain the sudden collapse of the Ancien Régime as stemming in part from its rigidity. Aristocrats were confronted by the rising ambitions of merchants, tradesmen and prosperous farmers allied with aggrieved peasants, wage-earners and intellectuals influenced by the ideas of Enlightenment philosophers. As the revolution proceeded, power devolved from the monarchy and privileged-by-birth to more representative political bodies, like legislative assemblies, but conflicts among formerly allied republican groups caused of considerable discord and bloodshed.


title: Ancien Régime

text: A growing number of French people had absorbed the ideas of "equality" and "freedom of the individual" as presented by Voltaire, Diderot, Turgot, and other philosophers and social theorists of the Enlightenment. The American Revolution had demonstrated that Enlightenment ideas about the organisation of governance could actually be put into practice. Some American diplomats, like Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, had lived in Paris and consorted freely with members of the French intellectual class there. Furthermore, contact between American revolutionaries and the French soldiers, who had provided aid to the Continental Army in North America during the American Revolutionary War, helped to spread revolutionary ideals in France.


title: Ancien Régime

text: After a time, many people in France began to attack the democratic deficit of their own government, push for freedom of speech, challenge the Roman Catholic Church and decry the prerogatives of the nobles.


title: Ancien Régime

text: The revolution was caused by not a single event but a series of events that together irreversibly changed the organisation of political power, the nature of society and the exercise of individual freedoms.


title: Ancien Régime

text: For some observers, the term came to denote a certain nostalgia. For example, Talleyrand famously quipped:


title: Ancien Régime

text: That affection was caused by the perceived decline in culture and values after the revolution, in which the aristocracy lost much of its economic and political power to what was seen as a rich, coarse and materialistic bourgeoisie. The theme recurs throughout 19th-century French literature, with Balzac and Flaubert alike attacking the mores of the new upper classes. To that mindset, the Ancien Régime had expressed a bygone era of refinement and grace before the revolution and its associated changes ushered in a crude uncertain modernity.


title: Ancien Régime

text: The historian Alexis de Tocqueville argued against that defining narrative in his classic study "L'Ancien Régime et la Révolution", which highlighted the continuities in French institutions before and after the revolution.


title: Aquifer

text: An aquifer is an underground layer of water-bearing, permeable rock, rock fractures, or unconsolidated materials (gravel, sand, or silt). Groundwater from aquifers can be extracted using a water well. Aquifers vary greatly in their characteristics. The study of water flow in aquifers and the characterization of aquifers is called hydrogeology. Related terms include aquitard, which is a bed of low permeability along an aquifer, and aquiclude (or "aquifuge"), which is a solid, impermeable area underlying or overlying an aquifer, the pressure of which could create a confined aquifer. The classification of aquifers is as follows: Saturated versus unsaturated; aquifers versus aquitards; confined versus unconfined; isotropic versus anisotropic; porous, karst, or fractured; transboundary aquifer.


title: Aquifer

text: Challenges for using groundwater include: overdrafting (extracting groundwater beyond the equilibrium yield of the aquifer), groundwater-related subsidence of land, groundwater becoming saline, groundwater pollution.


title: Aquifer

text: Aquifers occur from near-surface to deeper than . Those closer to the surface are not only more likely to be used for water supply and irrigation, but are also more likely to be replenished by local rainfall. Although aquifers are sometimes characterized as "underground rivers or lakes," they are actually porous rock saturated with water.


title: Aquifer

text: Many desert areas have limestone hills or mountains within them or close to them that can be exploited as groundwater resources. Part of the Atlas Mountains in North Africa, the Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon ranges between Syria and Lebanon, the Jebel Akhdar in Oman, parts of the Sierra Nevada and neighboring ranges in the United States' Southwest, have shallow aquifers that are exploited for their water. Overexploitation can lead to the exceeding of the practical sustained yield; i.e., more water is taken out than can be replenished.


title: Aquifer

text: Along the coastlines of certain countries, such as Libya and Israel, increased water usage associated with population growth has caused a lowering of the water table and the subsequent contamination of the groundwater with saltwater from the sea.


title: Aquifer

text: In 2013 large freshwater aquifers were discovered under continental shelves off Australia, China, North America and South Africa. They contain an estimated half a million cubic kilometers of "low salinity" water that could be economically processed into potable water. The reserves formed when ocean levels were lower and rainwater made its way into the ground in land areas that were not submerged until the ice age ended 20,000 years ago. The volume is estimated to be 100 times the amount of water extracted from other aquifers since 1900.


title: Aquifer

text: An "aquitard" is a zone within the Earth that restricts the flow of groundwater from one aquifer to another. An aquitard can sometimes, if completely impermeable, be called an "aquiclude" or "aquifuge". Aquitards are composed of layers of either clay or non-porous rock with low hydraulic conductivity.


title: Aquifer

text: Groundwater can be found at nearly every point in the Earth's shallow subsurface to some degree, although aquifers do not necessarily contain fresh water. The Earth's crust can be divided into two regions: the "saturated zone" or "phreatic zone" (e.g., aquifers, aquitards, etc.), where all available spaces are filled with water, and the "unsaturated zone" (also called the vadose zone), where there are still pockets of air that contain some water, but can be filled with more water.


title: Aquifer

text: "Saturated" means the pressure head of the water is greater than atmospheric pressure (it has a gauge pressure > 0). The definition of the water table is the surface where the pressure head is equal to atmospheric pressure (where gauge pressure = 0).


title: Aquifer

text: "Unsaturated" conditions occur above the water table where the pressure head is negative (absolute pressure can never be negative, but gauge pressure can) and the water that incompletely fills the pores of the aquifer material is under suction. The water content in the unsaturated zone is held in place by surface adhesive forces and it rises above the water table (the zero-gauge-pressure isobar) by capillary action to saturate a small zone above the phreatic surface (the capillary fringe) at less than atmospheric pressure. This is termed tension saturation and is not the same as saturation on a water-content basis. Water content in a capillary fringe decreases with increasing distance from the phreatic surface. The capillary head depends on soil pore size. In sandy soils with larger pores, the head will be less than in clay soils with very small pores. The normal capillary rise in a clayey soil is less than but can range between .


title: Aquifer

text: The capillary rise of water in a small-diameter tube involves the same physical process. The water table is the level to which water will rise in a large-diameter pipe (e.g., a well) that goes down into the aquifer and is open to the atmosphere.


title: Aquifer

text: Aquifers are typically saturated regions of the subsurface that produce an economically feasible quantity of water to a well or spring (e.g., sand and gravel or fractured bedrock often make good aquifer materials).


title: Aquifer

text: An aquitard is a zone within the Earth that restricts the flow of groundwater from one aquifer to another. A completely impermeable aquitard is called an "aquiclude" or "aquifuge". Aquitards contain layers of either clay or non-porous rock with low hydraulic conductivity.


title: Aquifer

text: In mountainous areas (or near rivers in mountainous areas), the main aquifers are typically unconsolidated alluvium, composed of mostly horizontal layers of materials deposited by water processes (rivers and streams), which in cross-section (looking at a two-dimensional slice of the aquifer) appear to be layers of alternating coarse and fine materials. Coarse materials, because of the high energy needed to move them, tend to be found nearer the source (mountain fronts or rivers), whereas the fine-grained material will make it farther from the source (to the flatter parts of the basin or overbank areas—sometimes called the pressure area). Since there are less fine-grained deposits near the source, this is a place where aquifers are often unconfined (sometimes called the forebay area), or in hydraulic communication with the land surface.


title: Aquifer

text: There are two end members in the spectrum of types of aquifers; "confined" and "unconfined" (with semi-confined being in between). "Unconfined" aquifers are sometimes also called "water table" or "phreatic" aquifers, because their upper boundary is the water table or phreatic surface. (See Biscayne Aquifer.) Typically (but not always) the shallowest aquifer at a given location is unconfined, meaning it does not have a confining layer (an aquitard or aquiclude) between it and the surface. The term "perched" refers to ground water accumulating above a low-permeability unit or strata, such as a clay layer. This term is generally used to refer to a small local area of ground water that occurs at an elevation higher than a regionally extensive aquifer. The difference between perched and unconfined aquifers is their size (perched is smaller). Confined aquifers are aquifers that are overlain by a confining layer, often made up of clay. The confining layer might offer some protection from surface contamination.


title: Aquifer

text: If the distinction between confined and unconfined is not clear geologically (i.e., if it is not known if a clear confining layer exists, or if the geology is more complex, e.g., a fractured bedrock aquifer), the value of storativity returned from an aquifer test can be used to determine it (although aquifer tests in unconfined aquifers should be interpreted differently than confined ones). Confined aquifers have very low storativity values (much less than 0.01, and as little as ), which means that the aquifer is storing water using the mechanisms of aquifer matrix expansion and the compressibility of water, which typically are both quite small quantities. Unconfined aquifers have storativities (typically called specific yield) greater than 0.01 (1% of bulk volume); they release water from storage by the mechanism of actually draining the pores of the aquifer, releasing relatively large amounts of water (up to the drainable porosity of the aquifer material, or the minimum volumetric water content).


title: Aquifer

text: In isotropic aquifers or aquifer layers the hydraulic conductivity (K) is equal for flow in all directions, while in anisotropic conditions it differs, notably in horizontal (Kh) and vertical (Kv) sense.


title: Aquifer

text: Semi-confined aquifers with one or more aquitards work as an anisotropic system, even when the separate layers are isotropic, because the compound Kh and Kv values are different (see hydraulic transmissivity and hydraulic resistance).


title: Aquifer

text: When calculating flow to drains or flow to wells in an aquifer, the anisotropy is to be taken into account lest the resulting design of the drainage system may be faulty.


title: Aquifer

text: To properly manage an aquifer its properties must be understood. Many properties must be known to predict how an aquifer will respond to rainfall, drought, pumping, and contamination. Where and how much water enters the groundwater from rainfall and snowmelt? How fast and what direction does the groundwater travel? How much water leaves the ground as springs? How much water can be sustainably pumped out? How quickly will a contamination incident reach a well or spring? Computer models can be used to test how accurately the understanding of the aquifer properties matches the actual aquifer performance. Environmental regulations require sites with potential sources of contamination to demonstrate that the hydrology has been characterized.


title: Aquifer

text: Porous aquifers typically occur in sand and sandstone. Porous aquifer properties depend on the depositional sedimentary environment and later natural cementation of the sand grains. The environment where a sand body was deposited controls the orientation of the sand grains, the horizontal and vertical variations, and the distribution of shale layers. Even thin shale layers are important barriers to groundwater flow. All these factors affect the porosity and permeability of sandy aquifers.


title: Aquifer

text: Sandy deposits formed in shallow marine environments and in windblown sand dune environments have moderate to high permeability while sandy deposits formed in river environments have low to moderate permeability. Rainfall and snowmelt enter the groundwater where the aquifer is near the surface. Groundwater flow directions can be determined from potentiometric surface maps of water levels in wells and springs. Aquifer tests and well tests can be used with Darcy's law flow equations to determine the ability of a porous aquifer to convey water.


title: Aquifer

text: Analyzing this type of information over an area gives an indication how much water can be pumped without overdrafting and how contamination will travel. In porous aquifers groundwater flows as slow seepage in pores between sand grains. A groundwater flow rate of 1 foot per day (0.3 m/d) is considered to be a high rate for porous aquifers, as illustrated by the water slowly seeping from sandstone in the accompanying image to the left.


title: Aquifer

text: Porosity is important, but, "alone", it does not determine a rock's ability to act as an aquifer. Areas of the Deccan Traps (a basaltic lava) in west central India are good examples of rock formations with high porosity but low permeability, which makes them poor aquifers. Similarly, the micro-porous (Upper Cretaceous) Chalk Group of south east England, although having a reasonably high porosity, has a low grain-to-grain permeability, with its good water-yielding characteristics mostly due to micro-fracturing and fissuring.


title: Aquifer

text: Karst aquifers typically develop in limestone. Surface water containing natural carbonic acid moves down into small fissures in limestone. This carbonic acid gradually dissolves limestone thereby enlarging the fissures. The enlarged fissures allow a larger quantity of water to enter which leads to a progressive enlargement of openings. Abundant small openings store a large quantity of water. The larger openings create a conduit system that drains the aquifer to springs.


title: Aquifer

text: Characterization of karst aquifers requires field exploration to locate sinkholes, swallets, sinking streams, and springs in addition to studying geologic maps. Conventional hydrogeologic methods such as aquifer tests and potentiometric mapping are insufficient to characterize the complexity of karst aquifers. These conventional investigation methods need to be supplemented with dye traces, measurement of spring discharges, and analysis of water chemistry. U.S. Geological Survey dye tracing has determined that conventional groundwater models that assume a uniform distribution of porosity are not applicable for karst aquifers.


title: Aquifer

text: Linear alignment of surface features such as straight stream segments and sinkholes develop along fracture traces. Locating a well in a fracture trace or intersection of fracture traces increases the likelihood to encounter good water production. Voids in karst aquifers can be large enough to cause destructive collapse or subsidence of the ground surface that can create a catastrophic release of contaminants. Groundwater flow rate in karst aquifers is much more rapid than in porous aquifers as shown in the accompanying image to the left. For example, in the Barton Springs Edwards aquifer, dye traces measured the karst groundwater flow rates from 0.5 to 7 miles per day (0.8 to 11.3 km/d). The rapid groundwater flow rates make karst aquifers much more sensitive to groundwater contamination than porous aquifers.


title: Aquifer

text: In the extreme case, groundwater may exist in "underground rivers" (e.g., caves underlying karst topography.


title: Aquifer

text: If a rock unit of low porosity is highly fractured, it can also make a good aquifer (via fissure flow), provided the rock has a hydraulic conductivity sufficient to facilitate movement of water.


title: Aquifer

text: Transboundariness is a concept, a measure and an approach first introduced in 2017. The relevance of this approach is that the physical features of the aquifers become just additional variables among the broad spectrum of considerations of the transboundary nature of an aquifer:


title: Aquifer

text: The discussion changes from the traditional question of “is the aquifer transboundary?” to “how transboundary is the aquifer?”.


title: Aquifer

text: The socio-economic and political contexts effectively overwhelm the aquifer's physical features adding its corresponding geostrategic value (its transboundariness)


title: Aquifer

text: The criteria proposed by this approach attempt to encapsulate and measure all potential variables that play a role in defining the transboundary nature of an aquifer and its multidimensional boundaries.


title: Aquifer

text: Challenges for using groundwater include: overdrafting (extracting groundwater beyond the equilibrium yield of the aquifer), groundwater-related subsidence of land, groundwater becoming saline, groundwater pollution.


title: Aquifer

text: Aquifer depletion is a problem in some areas, especially in northern Africa, where one example is the Great Manmade River project of Libya. However, new methods of groundwater management such as artificial recharge and injection of surface waters during seasonal wet periods has extended the life of many freshwater aquifers, especially in the United States.


title: Aquifer

text: The Great Artesian Basin situated in Australia is arguably the largest groundwater aquifer in the world (over ). It plays a large part in water supplies for Queensland, and some remote parts of South Australia.


title: Aquifer

text: Discontinuous sand bodies at the base of the McMurray Formation in the Athabasca Oil Sands region of northeastern Alberta, Canada, are commonly referred to as the Basal Water Sand (BWS) aquifers. Saturated with water, they are confined beneath impermeable bitumen-saturated sands that are exploited to recover bitumen for synthetic crude oil production. Where they are deep-lying and recharge occurs from underlying Devonian formations they are saline, and where they are shallow and recharged by surface water they are non-saline. The BWS typically pose problems for the recovery of bitumen, whether by open-pit mining or by "in situ" methods such as steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD), and in some areas they are targets for waste-water injection.


title: Aquifer

text: The Guarani Aquifer, located beneath the surface of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay, is one of the world's largest aquifer systems and is an important source of fresh water. Named after the Guarani people, it covers , with a volume of about , a thickness of between and a maximum depth of about .


title: Aquifer

text: The Ogallala Aquifer of the central United States is one of the world's great aquifers, but in places it is being rapidly depleted by growing municipal use, and continuing agricultural use. This huge aquifer, which underlies portions of eight states, contains primarily fossil water from the time of the last glaciation. Annual recharge, in the more arid parts of the aquifer, is estimated to total only about 10 percent of annual withdrawals. According to a 2013 report by the United States Geological Survey (USGS), the depletion between 2001 and 2008, inclusive, is about 32 percent of the cumulative depletion during the entire 20th century."


title: Aquifer

text: In the United States, the biggest users of water from aquifers include agricultural irrigation and oil and coal extraction. "Cumulative total groundwater depletion in the United States accelerated in the late 1940s and continued at an almost steady linear rate through the end of the century. In addition to widely recognized environmental consequences, groundwater depletion also adversely impacts the long-term sustainability of groundwater supplies to help meet the Nation’s water needs."


title: Aquifer

text: An example of a significant and sustainable carbonate aquifer is the Edwards Aquifer in central Texas. This carbonate aquifer has historically been providing high quality water for nearly 2 million people, and even today, is full because of tremendous recharge from a number of area streams, rivers and lakes. The primary risk to this resource is human development over the recharge areas.


title: Firewatch

text: Firewatch is an adventure game developed by Campo Santo and published by the developer in partnership with Panic. The game was released in February 2016 for Microsoft Windows, OS X, Linux, and PlayStation 4, for Xbox One in September 2016, and for Nintendo Switch in December 2018.


title: Firewatch

text: The story follows a fire lookout named Henry who works in Shoshone National Forest, a year after the Yellowstone fires of 1988. A month after his first day at work, strange things begin happening to him and his supervisor Delilah, which connects to a conspired mystery that happened years ago. Henry interacts with Delilah using a walkie-talkie, with the player choosing from dialog options to communicate. His exchanges with Delilah inform the process by which their relationship is developed. The game was directed by Olly Moss and Sean Vanaman, written by Chris Remo, Jake Rodkin, Moss and Vanaman, and produced by Gabe McGill and artist Jane Ng. The game's environment was modelled by Ng, based on a single painting by Moss. The design draws inspiration from New Deal advertisements by the National Park Service and field research conducted in Yosemite National Park.


title: Firewatch

text: The game received generally positive reviews, earning praise for its story, characters, dialogue, and visual style. However, the presence of technical issues and the game's ending were both subjects of criticism. "Firewatch" won the award for Best 3D Visual Experience at the Unity Awards 2016, Best Indie Game at the 2016 Golden Joystick Awards, Best Narrative at the 2017 Game Developers Choice Awards and Debut Game at the 2017 British Academy Games Awards. By late 2016, the game had sold over a million copies.


title: Firewatch

text: "Firewatch" is an adventure game played from a first-person view that takes place in the American state of Wyoming in 1989. Players take on the role of Henry, a fire lookout who is assigned to his own tower in Shoshone National Forest. Through exploration of the surrounding area, Henry uncovers clues about mysterious occurrences in the vicinity that are related to the ransacking of his tower while he is out on a routine patrol and a shadowy figure that occasionally appears watching him from afar. Henry's only means of communication is a walkie-talkie connecting him to his supervisor, Delilah. Players may choose from a number of dialog options to speak with her upon the discovery of new interactive objects or environments, or can refrain from communicating. The player's choices will influence the tone of Henry's relationship with Delilah. As the story progresses, new areas will be opened up for players, and certain events are set at different times of the day. Objects found in the wilderness can be kept in the inventory for later use.


title: Firewatch

text: Upon finishing the game, players can explore the game in an open-world free-roam mode or an audio tour mode.


title: Firewatch

text: In the spring of 1989, after his wife develops early-onset dementia, Henry (Rich Sommer) takes a job as a fire lookout in Shoshone National Forest, Wyoming. On his first day, Delilah (Cissy Jones), a lookout in another watchtower, contacts him via walkie-talkie and asks him to investigate illegal fireworks by the lake. Henry discovers a pair of teenage girls, who accuse him of leering. On his way back to his tower, he comes across a locked cave and spots a shadowy figure watching him before disappearing. He returns to his watchtower to find it ransacked. The next day, Delilah asks Henry to investigate a downed communication line. He finds it cut, with a note apparently signed by the teens. He and Delilah plot to scare the girls off, but when he finds the girls' campsite ransacked and abandoned, they begin to worry.


title: Firewatch

text: Henry finds an old backpack and a disposable camera belonging to a boy named Brian Goodwin, who Delilah explains was the son of Ned, a former lookout. Ned was an outdoorsman who drank heavily due to his traumatic experiences in the Vietnam War, while his son, Brian, enjoyed fantasy novels and role-playing games. Though it is against the rules for employees to bring their children to the towers, Delilah was fond of Brian and lied about his presence. He and Ned apparently left abruptly and never returned. The teenage girls are reported missing. Fearing an inquiry, Delilah falsifies reports to say that neither she nor Henry encountered the girls.


title: Firewatch

text: Two months after Henry started his job, a small wildfire breaks out south of his tower. Two weeks later, Henry discovers a radio and a clipboard while fishing, with notes including transcripts of his conversations with Delilah. He is suddenly beaten unconscious by an unseen assailant and wakes up to find the clipboard and radio gone. In a meadow referred to on the clipboard letterhead, he finds a fenced-off government research area. He breaks in and discovers surveillance equipment and typewritten reports detailing his and Delilah's conversations and private lives. He also discovers a tracking device, which he takes with him. Disturbed by this discovery, Henry and Delilah discuss destroying the government camp but decide against it. As Henry hikes home, however, someone sets fire to the camp.


title: Firewatch

text: The next day, Henry uses the tracking device to find a backpack with a key to the locked cave. Delilah reports a figure in Henry's tower; when Henry arrives, he finds a Walkman taped to the door with an incriminating recording of Henry and Delilah's discussion about destroying the government camp. The next day, someone impersonating Henry calls another lookout and claims that Delilah knows the cause of the station fire, putting her and Henry more on edge.


title: Firewatch

text: Henry uses the found key to enter the cave but is suddenly locked inside by an unseen figure. Deep in the cave, Henry discovers the decayed body of Brian Goodwin. Determining that he died trying to climb in the cave, Henry uses Brian’s broken climbing gear to escape and reports it to Delilah who becomes upset by the news. The next day, an evacuation order is given for all the lookouts, as the wildfire that Henry had spotted and named earlier has grown out of control.


title: Firewatch

text: As Henry prepares to leave, the tracking device begins beeping. He follows the signal and discovers a tape from Ned Goodwin. Ned claims that Brian's death was accidental, and that the boy fell due to climbing inexperience. Unwilling to return to society after Brian's death, Ned secretly lived in the area ever since. Choosing to venture deeper into the wilderness, Ned warns Henry not to look for him. Henry finds Ned's makeshift bunker, along with items stolen from the government camp, the lookout towers, and the teenage girls, who Delilah confirms have been found safe. The government camp was simply studying wildlife; Ned had been using its radio equipment to ensure that no one was looking for him and to create transcripts to scare Henry away. Despite Ned’s confession, Delilah blames him for Brian's death and leaves on the rescue helicopter. Henry goes to her tower, and he and Delilah say their goodbyes via radio before Henry evacuates.