A Wood Famine? The Question of Deforestation in Old Regime France

Abstract

Both contemporaries and modern students have differed as to whether or to what extent France confronted a wood shortage during the old regime. Certainly demands on French forests were great, with the royal government (especially the navy), industrialists, urban centres, and the peasantry all laying claim to woodland resources. By the 1660s, Versailles attempted to regulate these demands; set priorities among them, giving highest priority to the fleet; and establish sound conservation practices. Despite these efforts, French forests declined in both extent and quality because of a venal forestry service, the need to raise ready cash for the treasury, efforts to clear land for growing cereals, the obstruction of conservation efforts by local authorities, the unregulated grazing of livestock in woodlands, and expanding industrial fuel consumption. Not all consumers were equally affected by this deterioration, however. While maritime ship building confronted grave problems and peasant wood users suffered to some extent, cities and towns faced relatively minor problems, and manufacturers such as iron and glass makers scarcely had to deal with a wood famine at all. The ample supply of wood militated against any shift to coal burning, especially among industrialists. As a dearth of firewood and a consequent use of coal had been an important stimulus to the British economy in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the ready availability of traditional fuels (wood and charcoal) may be considered as one factor that tended to retard French economic development.