Tea at Trianon: The Flour War

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Wednesday, April 13, 2022

The Flour War

From World History Encyclopedia:

By the 1700s, grain had become the most popular crop in France. Although there had not been any widespread, countrywide famines in the six decades prior to the 1770s, localized hunger was still an issue, and the fear of starvation had been enough to spark an obsession with the growing of grain. Other high-yield crops such as maize and potatoes were more rarely grown since these two crops required much more fertilizer than grain, which proved to be difficult in a time when most herds of livestock were neither numerous nor well-nourished enough to provide adequate manure. Aside from Alsace and Lorraine where potatoes were widely cultivated, many French peasants still considered potatoes to be unfit for animal consumption, let alone human, and refused to grow them.

The popularity of grain, combined with a lack of consistent access to meats in the lower classes, meant that bread made up a huge portion of ordinary peoples' diets. The lack of diversification in French agriculture also meant that the failure of harvests had a catastrophic effect. Although France had enjoyed many years of good harvests in the first half of the 18th century, from the late 1760s onward, harvests became more uncertain, and yields fluctuated sharply. Between 1770 and 1789, only three harvest seasons were abundant everywhere in France. With each new generation, peasant farmlands were divided up amongst the sons, so that by the late 1700s, many countryside farms were rather small, and therefore yielded unstable harvests.

The fear of famine prompted many French peasants to become protective over their access to bread. It was widely believed that the ability to feed oneself was a right that must be protected by the authorities. For this reason, the king of France had long been nicknamed "the first baker of the kingdom" and was expected to ensure that all his subjects had access to bread. If this right was not protected, such as in the case of bread prices rising beyond what most people could afford, many felt that it was their moral responsibility to act. This practice of ensuring that goods needed for survival were accessible to all would become known as a moral economy. Most people viewed this differently from outright thievery, as when prices rose too high, rioters who took bread or grain would often leave behind whatever price they felt was fair, a concept known as taxation populaire. Hoarding in times of difficulty was also seen as a cardinal sin; during the French Revolution, it was punishable by death. (Read more.)