Bread, Harvests and Hunger in 1788–89

Economic hardship turned a political crisis into a popular one. Bread was the staple food of most French people, and many urban workers spent around half or more of their income on it in normal times. In 1788 a poor harvest, worsened by a severe hailstorm in July that devastated crops across northern France, pushed grain prices sharply upward. The following winter was bitterly cold, and unemployment rose as people had less money to spend on manufactured goods.

In Paris the price of a four-pound loaf reached its peak in the summer of 1789. Hungry people suspected hoarders, speculators and even aristocratic plots of deliberately starving them. Historians caution that hunger alone does not make revolutions, since France had survived dearths before; what made 1789 different was that economic misery coincided with a political crisis that seemed to offer change.