托克维尔的《旧制度与大革命》在很大程度上是对贵族制的辩护以及对法国贵族的反思。作为一个贵族的后裔,托克维尔在政治上的态度是开明的,并非一个顽固的保守派。他对法国大革命有几分同情的理解,不同于攻击法国大革命的英国保守主义者伯克。《旧制度与大革命》不是一本攻击大革命的书。我们在该书前言里可以读到托克维尔提起大革命最初阶段的革命者时充满激赏之情: Tocqueville’s “Old System and the Great Revolution” are to a very large extent a defense of the aristocracy and reflection on the French aristocracy. As a descendant of the aristocracy, Tocqueville’s political attitude was enlightened and not a stubborn conservative. His somewhat sympathetic understanding of the French Revolution differed from Burke, the British conservative who attacked the French Revolution. “The old system and the revolution” is not a book attacking the revolution. In the preface to that book we can read that Tocqueville was full of rewards when he brought up the revolutionaries in the early stages of the Great Revolution: