Great Historical Events That Were Significantly Attected by the Weather: 2, The Year Leading to the Revolution ai rn Abstract In spring 1788 a drought struck France and lead to @ poor grain harvest and subsequent famine, In July of the same year an intense hailstorm caused additional damage in parts Of the country, and the relatively harsh 1788-89 winter gave tise to further hardships, The poorer clases, 05% of whose Giet consisted of bread and cereals and. which before the drought had to spend about 85%, of their earings on bread, were forced by the famine conditions of the first half of 1789 to spend now 859; and over of their income on this staple food. The severity of the conditions in France will be ap: preciated if it is borne in mind that the poorer clases constituted nearly 80% of the population. The famine, that is, the drought, aggravated the situation of the country that was in any cate In the throes of a 10-year economic slump and unemployment. Moreover, the drought came at a time When the nobility and the bourgeoisie were in a state of revolt or near revolt. While the famine was not the pri mary cause of the revolution, it contributed co its timing and to the widespread violence that broke out even before July 1789 as well as © the violent actions marking the sun imer of 1789 in France, 1. Introduction Since the poor grain harvest of the summer of 1788 in France led to famine conditions and to various acts of violence during the subsequent year, some scholars were ready to see in the food shortage an important factor in the outbreak of the revolution in July 1789. Early his torians of the French Revolution of 1789 tended to as cribe the failure of the harvest to a major storm that took place over some parts of France on 18 July 1788. Other historians and economist-historians, especially of the present century, attributed the failure to the com- bined effects of 1) a drought that struck France in the spring of 1788 (spring being the principal growing sea son for grain), and 2) the July hailstorm, In his recent book Le Roy Ladurie (1972) considers the aforemen: tioned meteorological events and points to the spring drought as the decisive factor. In this paper we shall turn attention to the economic and social conditions of the poorer classes in France during the latter part of the 18th century. ‘These classes constituted close to 90%, of the country’s population, To, them the availability of bread and its availability at acceptable prices were matters of vital concern; conse: quently, they were most susceptible to the effects of "Part 1, “The Mongol Invasions of Japan,” was published in the November 1975 Buus (56, 1167-1171), Bulletin American Meteorological Society J. Neumann Department of Atmospheric Sciences ‘The Hebrew University Jerusalem, Israel ‘weather on staple crops. And because peasantry made up the overwhelming majority of the poorer classes, most of our attention will be directed at the state of agriculture and, in. particular, at the plight of the Peta wiew of our iateret in weather and, especially in the drought of 1788, we shall consider the meteorological data of the period. Fortunately, some instrumental ob- servations were begun at Paris late in the 17th century (see Section 5 below). A few additional observations were Jaunched in the latter half of the 18th century. Recently, Le Roy Ladurie and Dessive (1972) rediscovered, stud- ied, and published a neglected set of data (mainly of air temperature) gathered between 1776 and 1792 by France's Royal Society of Medicine. Further, we shall quote British diplomatic dispatches describing the great hailstorm of 13. July 1788, 2. Rural poverty Although in the second half of the 18th century some 75-80% of France's population were peasants (Cobban, 1951, ‘p. possessed by them, the figure varying between about 5%, and 50%, from one part of the country to the other. In actual fact, only one in three owned any land (Rudé, 1975, p. 12), and of these, the larger part owned tiny parcels that even in years of bumper harvest were in- sufficient to support the families. In the mean for the country, something like 12 acres were required for an average size family for subsistence. Yet, according to Lefebvre (1978, p. 8), in some areas of the country, 58% (in other areas, 70%) of the peasants possessed 5 acres or less; in still other regions, 75% owned less than 21/2 acres. No doubt, one reason behind the small size of land holdings by peasants was in the increase in popula- tion (leading some historians to argue that the French Revolution was brought about by prosperity and not by misery), but, in any case, it had its grave conse- quences. The consequences of smaliness of land parcels are succinctly illustrated by the following observation of the British agricultural economist Arthur Young (F-R.S. Secre- tary to Britain's "Honorable Board of Agriculture’ traveled widely in France on the eve of the French 186), only about onethird of the land was “Peasants arc defined here as individuals deriving all or moat of their income either from agricultural work and/or owning at most a “small” holding of land. Our definition thus includes agricultural day laborers, 163164 Revolution, Young (1792; see p. 279 of 1950 edition) says: “Go to districts where the properties are minutely, divided, and you will find great distress, even misery, and probably very bad agriculture. Go to others, where such subdivision has not taken place, and you will find a better cultivation, and infinitely less misery." The great poverty of the peasantry and the sensitive de. pendence of the country on grain and other staple crops (eg wine) were not due solely to the smallness of peasant land holdings. The real trouble was the back- wardness of French agriculture in the 18th century Taine (1958, p. 18), the literary critic curned historian, comments as follows on the state of French agriculture at the time: “... there are no ploughs made of iron; in many places the plough of Virgil’ time is still in use. More recently, the noted economist Sée (1958, pp. 51- 52) wrote: “"The farm buildings were poorly arranged, and the implements were unsatisfactory and quite primi- tive being hardly superior to those employed during the Middle Ages. Intensive cultivation was practically un known everywhere.” Because of poor agricultural practices and lack of manure in adequate quantities (the peasants did not hhave enough feed for livestock, and in the forage crisis, Drought about by the drought of 1785, ie, three years before the 1788 major drought, they had to slaughter numbers of cattle) the fields were left fallow I year out of 8 and often 1 out of 2 (Taine, 1958, p. 18; Labrousse, 1958, p. 60) and sometimes in 2 out of 8 (Sée, 1958, p. 51). Further, the need for seed made a heavy drain on the harvest: one-fifth and even one-fourth of the average annual yield Ic is no wonder that, under the circumstances, when 4 drought or other meteorological calamity struck, the poorer classes, rural and urban, were severely affected. ‘The desperate situation in 1789 of the poorer classes was apdy summed up by Taine (1988, p. 17): “The people may be said to resemble a man attempting to wade through a pool with the water up to his chin, and who, losing his footing at the slightest depression, sinks down and drowns.” 3. Food Hufton (1974, p. 44) states that during the second half of the 18th century, 95% and up of the diet of the poorer classes in France consisted of cereals, either in the form of bread or gruel oF some kind of liquid broth. Bread was made either from rye or from oats (Séc 1958, p. 54); the lower classes could not afford bread made from wheat ‘The average daily consumption of bread by the poorer lasses amounted to 1-1/2 to 2 and even to 31b for an, adult manual worker. Historians (Lefebvre, 1954, p. 161) estimate that in the years just before 1789 about 55%, of the earnings of workers were spent on bread alone; in 1789 the percentage rose to 889%, leaving but 12%, of the income for ather necessities. Cobban (1957, p. 136) and other historians point out Vol. 58, No. 2, February 1977 that if a chart of popular disturbances were drawn up for France of the 18th century, it is found that the disturbances coincide rather closely with periods of high, bread prices. Rose (1956, p. 172; see also Rose, 1959, p. 433) states that there was famine or partial famine in 1709, 1725, 1749, 1775, 1785, and 1788-89. (It is known that 1775 and 1785 were years of drought, especially 1775; see rainfall data for Paris in Table 1. The earlier sain data for Paris (Garnier, 1974, p. 49) do indicate a comparatively low rainfall for 1749 but not for 1725 or for 1709. As to 1709, it is known that the winter 1708-09 was excessively cold and long, causing wide spread crop failure.) The suffering caused by the defi cient harvest of 1788, which intensified the hardships produced by an ongoing economic crisis (see end of this section and next section), as well as the severity of the 1788-89 winter (Rudé, 1974, p. 75), combined to lead to acts of violence from about December 1788 and, on a larger scale, from March 1789, The acts of violence included burning of the chiteaux of the seigneurs, de struction of documents relating to the feudal obligations fof peasants, forcible opening of grain stores and places ‘of hoarding, popular fixing of grain prices, etc. That the revolutionary explosion (or, rather, one of the sev- eral major explosions) took place in July is, probably, not an accident. As Gobban (1957, p. 186) puc it: “The worst time after a bad harvest was always the early (next) summer, when the produce of the previous year’s arvest was exhausted and the new harvest had not yet been brought in." The ellects (the damage due to the 1788 spring drought and the hailstorm of 18 July 1788) were amplified by the fact cat they came after a decade ‘of economic depression that had set in soon after France's entry in 1777 of the American war. Wine rowers were among the first to suffer from the reces- sion: between 1778 and 1781 the price of wine fell by 50% and remained so until 1788 (Labrousse, 1958, p. 64) causing direct financial difficulties to an important sector of French agriculture, and, indirectly, to the economy as x whole (see next section). There are no firm estimates available concerning the magnitude of the damage to grain crops due to the spring drought of 1788 (and the hailstorm of July of the same year). The Ministry of Interior of the First Republic (1792-95) prepared estimates of the wheat hharvest for each of the 15 years (1774-88), and these figures would indicate that the 1788 wheat crop was 207, below the average of the said 15 years (we Labrousse (1970, p. 466, Fig, 49) who reproduces in a ‘graphical form the data). A weak point of this seem ingly reasonable figure is that we do not know how it wwas arrived at. According to the same set of data, the harvest of 1787 was about 10%, above the average (it is known that 1787 was a good crop year), but in 1787 the debtladen government freed and encouraged grain ex- ports, Many bitter erities of the ancien régime accused the government of exporting too much grain in the good harvest year of 1787 and importing far too litele in the famine year 1788-89.Bulletin American Meteorological Society 165 unt 1, Rainfall in milimetr for Api through Jun 171-95 and wt for each year Paris ‘Montdidier (Somme) Laon (Aisne) Year April May June Total ~—=Aprl«May = June Total = April, «May June Total 1731 1 BS 8 182 SS 3 1783 1% 887 ms 78 1784 Hw 9 3 86 Se 3733 1785, 4 reeeeey seine 22] Boo Sot a er 1786 HM Rs 629 37 teat B11 a8 87 BF 2 ott et) aby ud 1788, RB Rn ee 288506 BM SB 1789, S23 S00 B32 708 7 35 79734 1790 3 OM 5 383 mo 88 8 SH te SHH 1791 6 re mB 18 8 565 1792 o 9 46 ent] a 8 5S OSB 1793 ee Ets 1 1518385 1708 S87] 4 2 ae 1795 Do] 8 Ets) 9 2% aD * Data from Gamier (1974). 4, The poorer classes in cities ‘This section will be brief: the poverty and the food habits of the urban lower classes were much the same as those of the peasantry. The economic regression men- tioned above, which set in about 1778, led to a drop in industrial production and exports, partly due to an unfavorable trade treaty with England entered into in 1776, Labrousse (1958, p. 68) states that between 1787 and 1789 the nationwide production of cloth fell by 50%. ‘The cutback in industrial activity increased the number of unemployed whose ranks were in any case swollen by hapless peasants flocking to urban centers i search of subsistence, The poorer classes of the cities were unable © cope with the rising cost of bread de. spite the fact that in Paris, at least, the government subsidized bread prices—out of sheer fear of the masses. 5. Meteorological conditions Instrumental observations were begun in France in 1688 (Garnier, 1974, p. 11) when a raingage was placed on the terrace of the Paris Astronomical Observatory. Monthly amounts of rain measured at the station have recently been published by Garnier (1974). In Table 1 we reproduce the data for the months April through June 1781-95. The choice of the months was dictated by the fact that those months represent, as was pointed ‘out earlier, the principal growing season for grain; the years selected span the year of special interest here, vi 1788, and afford a comparison of meteorological cont tions in 1788 with those just before and just after. An additional feature of interest is that 1785 was itself a year of spring drought though of a lesser severity than that of 1788. In the above quoted paper by Garnier there are rain data for part of the period 1781-95 for two other sta tions: Montdidicr (49°39'N, 2°33'E) and Laon (49°38N, 8°38). Their data are also listed in Table 1. A short coming of the ParisMontdidier-Laon station triad is in that these localities are somewhat close and thus do not offer a coverage of the country. It is seen in Table 1 that the rainfall of April 1788 ‘was low at all three stations relative w (most) other years, The same applies to the figures for May for Montdidier and Laon but not for Paris. This may pos- sibly be due to the freakish character of short-term precipitation distributions. For example, Brazell (1968, p. 7) states that 1788 was a drought year at London, Indeed, the data for 1782-91 demonstrate that 1788 was the driest year of the decade. Yet, when we compare the observations for June for two close-by London stations, ‘Tamux 2. Deviation of monthly averages of aie temperature (Coutside” temperature) in 1785 and in 1788 from average of Series at stations of France's Royal Society of Mes ‘Average from Averase Tor the Series Locality Otwervation Apt May June aguenau (Almac en ee Mayenne (Matos) 84-92 ts oo our os NS 8 Arne (Arto) 777. 1779.91 Laie Pande) est he car uo 2010 ee (Party) 8.92 oe "Data from Le Roy Ladurie and Desive (1972), 1 For prt of year