Of Bread and Cake
While French philosophers debated the effects of commerce, French economists cheered it on. After 1700 both international and domestic trade picked up, and France's national income more than doubled, growing at about the same per capita rate as England's.15 A new economic confidence found expression in demands for deregulation of the grain trade.
Francois Quesnay argued that grain merchants should be left alone, and subsidies removed. An increase in the price of bread might cause some stress in the short run, he conceded, but in the long run, it would encourage farmers to plant more grain, averting future famines. What would happen to hungry peasants in the meantime? As Denis Diderot and other philosophers pointed out, bread was the most basic of necessities. It represented the very gluten of society, holding it together in ways that might be weakened by reliance on the market. 16Swayed by Quesnay, Louis XV chose the path of liberalization. Royal edicts of 1763 and 1764 rescinded most grain trade regulations, allowing both stockpiling and external export of grain and flour. By 1766, grain prices had risen dramatically and begun to excite unrest. Political pressure forced the King not only to reimpose rules on the Paris market, but also to spend royal funds increasing grain supplies there. Even when rules were extended to the country as a whole, shortages persisted. The injection of more money, or even more credit, into famine struck areas would have encouraged market networks and increased imports of the necessary food. But such policies would have made it more difficult to contain the costs of social obligation. The King managed to alienate both sides in the debate. Corruption and mismanagement of public subsidy programs generated anger at the grain control system. Market advocates argued that deregulation had been undermined by bad luck and inconsistent application.
While grain regulation represented part of a moral economy, the emphasis on grain itself was overstated.17Louis XV died in 1774, and his successor ascended the throne expressing his desire for the love of his people. He chose the economist Jacques Turgot as one of his ministers, and promptly agreed to another experiment with deregulation of the grain trade. The previous history repeated itself: bad weather, bad harvests, and poor market infrastructure. Grain prices went up and dissatisfaction mounted. The King had incurred debts that limited his financial flexibility. In 1789, the market women of Paris, angry at the high price of bread, marched for hours in the pouring rain to the palace at Versailles and demanded that the King force prices down. They also demanded that he return with them to Paris. Thus began women's active, organized participation in the Revolution.18
Initially, at least, Enlightenment optimism tempered political fury. The dissidents hoped to solve the country’s bread problem, reform its family laws, and design a new democracy. Unified primarily by their dissatisfaction with the old regime, they complained that the King was no longer fulfilling his responsibility as a father to his people, and had therefore lost his right to rule.19 But the revolution was not particularly successful at providing either bread or cake. Its leadership soon betrayed the very women who had marched upon the palace.