The core of Tocqueville’s late work L’Ancien Régime et la Révolution, which he began as early as 1850, is the increasing centralization of administration. In the Ancien Régime, this led to the abolition of all remaining intermediary powers and, thus, local and regional freedoms. He also provides a comprehensive analysis of the radical reinterpretation of legislative, executive and judicial power that took place during this period. At the start of the sixteenth century, the états généraux still had considerable influence on legislation, but their influence was reduced during the transition from the sixteenth to the seventeenth century to such an extent that they were eventually no longer convened.