Social Conflict and the Grain Supply in Eighteenth-Century France

Abstract

Social Conflict and the Grain Supply in Eighteenth-Century France In the history of hunger, of grain distribution, and of governmental policy toward the grain trade, the eighteenth century represents a universally acknowledged milestone in Western Europe. For France, it is the century which saw the disappearance of dramatic periods of starvation, sometimes accompanied by plague, which periodically caused sizable cutbacks in demographic performance. In Goubert's graphic phraseology, the courbe tourmentee of the seventeenthcentury mortality graph was replaced by a courbe sereine in the eighteenth. The net result was a sustained population growth at the national (if not invariably at the local) level. The reasons for this trend have been variously attributed to a change in climatic performance from conditions which had previously jeopardized grain yields to better communications and centralized administration, which permitted more effective grain distribution to localities facing acute shortage.1 The focus of this article is not on the reasons for, but rather on the fact of, growth. There were by the most conservative estimates 5 to 6 million more mouths to feed in I789 than there had been in I720. Moreover, this growth occurred, as far as has yet been ascertained, without any increase in native grain production to match it. North of the Loire, in limited enclaves, some increase has been detected. Significant economic growth did occur in wine production and textile development which permitted an international trade in Baltic and Levantine wheat. Notwithstand-