Great Historical Events that were 1 Neumann*and 1 De,,willer" Significantly Affected by the Weather: Part 9, the Year Leading to the Revolution of 1789 in France (II)*

Abstract sumed political overtones, especially in Paris. This was due to agitation by the bourgeoisie who desired the abolition of the many This paper is an extension of an earlier paper (Neumann 1977) on privileges of the nobility and Church, and the lifting of restrictions historical events affected by the weather. More data are published on some economic activities. The bread riots, caused by the high herein on rainfall, pressure and temperature for spring-early sum- bread prices (and, ultimately, by the drought), were used by the mer 1788, when a severe drought struck France during anticy- middle class for overthrowing the existing regime. clonic conditions, leading to a crop failure. It is estimated that the In France of the 1700s, the number of poor depended on the grain harvest was 35%-40% below the mean for 1774-88. (The price of bread which, first and foremost, was determined by the wine-grape harvest was even more catastrophic.) The shortfall led harvest. to increasingly high bread prices. The prices reached the highest level on 14 July 1789 (Bastille Day). Since workers spent about 55% of their income on bread and flour prior to 1788, bread riots had already broken out in August 1788. The number and violence 1. Introduction of the riots tended to increase with time, causing a destabilization of public order. Neumann (1977) published an article titled 'The Year A meteorological factor of secondary importance was the harsh winter of 1788-89, which brought additional suffering to the lower Leading to the Revolution of 1789 in France" which classes. The price of heating materials rose, and water mills could was the second part of the series in which the present not be operated because of the ice. paper appears. We shall refer to the aforementioned Until April 1789 the numerous riots did not have, in most cases, paper as FR I. Dettwiller (1978) prepared an article anti-regime overtones. After May, however, the disturbances as- for a magazine of the Meteorologie Nationale of France titled "Historique: La revolution de 1789 et la me- teorologie/' This article summarized the main theses * Emeritus, Department of Atmospheric Sciences, The Hebrew of FR I and put forward additional meteorological University, Jerusalem, Israel; in 1986-89 visiting with the De- data in support of the theses. partment of Meteorology, University of Copenhagen, Copen- hagen, Denmark In view of the 200th anniversary of the French Rev- ** Meteorologie Nationale, Paris, France olution (July 1989), we have prepared a second part t Part 1, "The Mongol Invasions of Japan," was published in to FR I in which we set forth more meteorological the November 1975 Bulletin (56, 1167—1171); Part 2, The Year Leading to the Revolution of 1789 in France," was published in data and comments on the meteorological events, i.e., the February 1977 Bulletin (58, 163-168); Part 3, "The Cold Win- a severe drought in spring 1 788, and a factor of sec- ter 1657-58: The Swedish Army Crosses Denmark's Frozen Sea ondary importance, namely the harsh winter 1788/ Areas," was published in the November 1978 Bulletin (59, 1432- 1437); Part 4, "The Great Famines in Finland and Estonia," was 89, that played important roles in destabilizing pub- published in the July 1979 Bulletin (60, 775-787); Part 5, "Some lic order and promoting significantly the process Meteorological Events of the Crimean War and Their Conse- leading to the political and social convulsion of France quences," was published in the December 1980 Bulletin (61, 1570- 1583); Part 6, "Inundations and the Mild Winter 1672-73 Help in summer 1789. Protect Amsterdam from French Conquest," was published in the In FR I a number of facts were quoted concerning (64, July 1983 Bulletin 770-778); Part 7 Protestant Wind—Popish the backwardness of agriculture in the days of the Wind: The Revolution of 1688 in England," was published in the June 1985 Bulletin (66, 634-644); Part 8, Chapter I, "Germany's Old Regime (Ancien Regime that ruled until the ad- War on the Soviet Union, 1941-45: Long-Range Weather Fore- vent of the Revolution). We have cited the literary casts for 1941-42 and Climatological Studies," was published in critic, philosopher, and historian Taine (1931, p. 339), the June 1987 Bulletin (68, 620-630): and Part 8, Chapter II, "Ger- many's War on the Soviet Union, 1941-45: Some Important Weather and here we cite his remark in a more complete form: Forecasts, 1942-45," was published in the July 1989 Bulletin (69, "[In France] the fields lie fallow one year out of three 730-735). and oftentimes one year out of two. The implements are poor; there are no ploughs made of iron; in many © 1990 American Meteorological Society places the plough of Virgil's time is still in use. . . .

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The yield is slight. 'Our ordinary farms/ says a good the highest temperatures recorded by the physicist observer, 'return about six times the seed sown/ " Arago (1858), who had much interest in meteorol- As to the latter statement, a similar observation was ogy, shows that in spring and early summer the tem- made nearly 100 yr earlier by Arthur Young (1976, peratures reached 32°-35°C. These high temperatures p. 602) a prominent British agricultural economist of must have enhanced potential evapotranspiration and the time1 who traveled widely in France in 1787-89 since rainfall was scanty, the young crops suffered and whose observations are quoted by many histo- and, in many cases, withered. The consequence was rians writing on the French Revolution. The other re- crop failure. mark we wish to quote is also due to Young (1976, Table 3 in FR I also lists the atmospheric pressure pp. 605-606). According to his estimate, while Brit- at the Paris Astronomical Observatory for the months ish agriculture produced 24-25 bushels of high-qual- April-June during the period 1781-95. The mean ity grain per acre, in France it was but 18 bushels, pressure in April 1788 was the highest of the series, some of it low quality. The underdeveloped state of while in May 1788 it was the second highest. In fig- the French agriculture made it highly vulnerable with ure 2 herein, we graph the pressure for the months regard to unfavorable weather [italics added]. April-July (this is nearly the complete growing sea- FR I also cited a number of facts on the poverty of son) for a longer period, 1770-99. The graph shows the "peasant" masses (small share-croppers, day la- that the mean pressure for 1788 was by far the high- borers) who constituted over 80% of France's popu- est: anticyclonic conditions must have prevailed dur- lation of over 26 million people. A few details were ing the growing season and they presumably account given of the heavy burden of "feudal" dues to which for the low rainfall and the high temperatures. the tenants were subjected by the landlords who be- It was not only in France that rainfall was low. The longed mostly to the aristocracy (some 350 000 in- data for Kew (Wales-Smith, 1971, p. 358), a suburb dividuals, including families), were high church of London, indicates that in southeast England, pre- dignitaries, or in the richer monastic orders. These cipitation was also deficient, though not to a cata- heavy dues were in addition to government taxes and strophic extent. Brazell (1968, p. 7) states that 1788 tithing to the Church. (The nobility and Church were was a dry year in the British capital. exempted from most taxes.) The only major industry of France (i.e., the textile and silk industry), underwent a crisis in 1787-89, 3. The harvest failure of 1788 causing unemployment in cities. The number of un- employed was further swelled by the rigorous winter of 1788/89 which forced some industries and work- Labrousse (1944), one of the most notable economic shops to close down. Since up to 95% of the diet of the lower classes consisted of bread or of flour-based foods, a year of inadequate harvest and rising bread prices increased the number of poor.

2. The drought of spring 1788

Figure 1 is a map of France showing the deviation of the April-May rainfall from the average for 1781-90. The number of rainfall stations was small at the time, but the existing data indicate that, with the exception of Paris, all the rainfall stations had a deficit of at least 35%. The shortfall was particularly serious in the south, where it reached 88%. The absence of precipitation was aggravated by relatively high tem- peratures (see tables 2 and 3 in FR I). The table of

FIG. 1. The drought of spring 1788 in France. Rainfall deviation 1 F.R.S., Secretary to the British Honourable Board of Agricul- expressed as percent of the April-May 1788 rainfall compared to ture. the mean for 1781-90. Source: Gamier (1974).

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FIG. 3. Index of the wine harvest, 1772-88, expressed as per FIG. 2. Mean pressure of the months April-July (approximately cent of wine harvest of the Champagne province. The mean of the growing season) 1770-99, at the Paris Astronomical Observ- 1772-84 has been taken by Lefebvre (1944, p. 95) as 100%. (Taken atory (about 100 m MSL). Note that the pressure for 1788 is the from Lefebvre 1954) highest of the series. Source: Renou (1880, p. B86).

historians of this century regarding the Old Regime for several areas of France. The editors of The French and the Revolution, states that grain production data Revolution, Voices from a Momentous Epoch, 1789- for the years preceding the Revolution have been lost, 1795, (Cobb and Jones 1988, p. 65) print a graph for but that the archives of the French Ministry of the 1731-89 showing two curves: one of the general, Interior possess an extract "Summary of Harvest Out- unweighted index of prices, and the second, of the puts (produit des recoltes) of France for 15 Consec- index of wheat. The graphs exhibit a very steep rise utive Years." The Summary gives the amounts of the from 1787 to 1789, especially in the case of wheat. different types of grain harvests as fractions of the But we are more concerned about the price of rye. average for the period 1774-88. The wheat harvest The volume Histoire de France, dynasties et revolu- of 1788 amounted to -h of the mean, and buckwheat tions de 1348 a 1852 (Duby 1971, p. 266), includes and the "small grains" (the latter being the collective a month-to-month diagram of the price of wheat and name used for oats and barley) amounted to § of the rye from January 1786 to December 1790. This dia- mean. The latter figure is of particular interest here, gram is reproduced in figure 4. The figure shows that for many of the Old Regime poor used buckwheat, the price of wheat and also that of rye at the begin- usually mixed with other low-grade cereals, such as ning of 1787 was but a little higher than at the be- rye, oats, and barley, for bread and other flour-based ginning of 1786. A marked rise occurred in March food items such as gruel and liquid broth. The effect 1788, in anticipation of a poor harvest. The rise be- of the quantitative shortfall of the grain harvest was came steeper in June. At the year's end the prices amplified by the mostly low quality of the crop. Nu- were 50% higher than in January. A still sharper rise merous complaints have been recorded of this; see, followed in January 1789, and by June the prices e.g., Rude (1954, p. 248), or Cobb and Jones (1988, were 75% above those of 1787. They were highest p. 64). on 14 July, which made some historians to suggest More details are available for wine grapes. Figure that the outbreak of the Revolution, as represented 3 is a copy of Labrousse's pertinent graph (Labrousse by the storming of the Bastille, was connected with 2 1944, p. 94). Although neither the quantity nor the the high bread price. quality of the grain harvest necessarily parallel the In an item titled "Hunger," Cobb and Jones (1988, wine-grape harvest, the very low wine-grape harvest p. 65) state that, in 1790, the National Assembly es- is an indication of highly unfavorable climatic con- timated that one in ten of France's population was ditions of the 1788 growing season. "poor" but that recent critical research indicates that actually, one in five, or even one in three was poor. This apparently great difference in estimates is not 4. The rise in grain/bread prices unreasonable, for, as we stated earlier, the number

Labrousse et al. (1970) have published a volume of 2 246 pages on the variation in wheat prices from 1726 We are reluctant to accept this view. True enough, the storming of the Bastille was a most violent (and symbolic) anti-regime act, to 1913. The material is mostly annual-value tables, but other violent actions went on for the past few days before the and, in a few cases, monthly values from year to year 14th.

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Lefebvre, a historian of the French Revolution, es- timates (1963, p. 228) that in 1 789, 88% of the earn- ings of workers went to bread and flour—if they could afford to spend such a high proportion of their in- come on bread and flour alone, when there were other indispensable expenses. The consequence was that workers could not buy bread in sufficient quan- tity, and therefore, the conditions were those of semi- hunger. Heretofore, we have primarily discussed workers in cities. However, the cities included a high per- centage of poor people who had either no work at all or no regular employment. Doyle (1987, pp. 1 78- 179) mentions that of the 600 000-650 000 inhab-

FIG. 4. Monthly price of wheat (ble) and rye (seigle), 1786-90, itants of Paris, some 150 000 were destitute (mi- in France. Note the sharp rise from April 1788 on, anticipating a grants, charity cases, poor houses, hospitals). bad harvest. The first major peak for the country as a whole was Moreover, there was a large rural population that reached in April 1789, whereas the peak of daily prices was reached on 14 July 1789 (Bastille Day), as stated in Lefebvre (1963, p. earned less than city workers. Their lot was even worse 234). Source of graph: Duby (1971, p. 266). The graph is repro- because the government was less apprehensive of this duced with the permission of Librairie Larousse, Paris, publishers population than of the lower classes in cities. They of the volume. endeavored to keep the cities better supplied and of poor depended on the harvest. If the weather of subsidized their flour prices. the growing season was unfavorable to crops, poverty The historian Rude (1954, p. 248) published a ta- spread. ble (his table 1) of the percentage of income spent on bread by Parisian workers in 1789. His table is reproduced here as table 1. The term "effective earn- 5. The overwhelming importance ing" takes into account that in France of the eight- of the bread price to the eenth century there were about 111 unpaid Feast Days poorer classes in a year.

A rise of 75% in the price of bread over a relatively short period does not look excessive to us, living in 6. Breat riots of the eighteenth century the last quarter of the twentieth century: In the 1970s, before 1788 after the Arab-Israeli War of 1973 (the "October War"), the price of oil rose by several hundred percent. But, There were eight major bread-crisis years in France since even in periods of more-or-less stable bread in the eighteenth century (Rude 1981, p. 22). They prices in France, about 55% of earnings of workers include the year following each of the well-known were spent on bread alone (Lefebvre 1954, p. 161), severe winters of European climatic history prior to and up to 95% of the diet of the poor was made up 1788, the winters 1708/09 and 1739/40. Of the seven of bread and flour (Hufton 1974, p. 44), a sharp rise that occurred before 1788, three (1768, 1775, and in bread prices, without compensation in income, 1785) fell in the 20 yr preceding 1 788—a rather high meant a catastrophe to the lower classes. concentration of bread-crisis years. The riots of 1 775

TABLE 1. Percentage of income spent on bread by Parisian workers in 1789.

'Effective' Expenditure on bread as percentage of income Daily daily Occupation wage3 earnings6 At 9 s. At 14% s. At 13| s. At 12 s.

Labourer in Reveillon's factoryc 25 15 60 97 90 80 Builder's laborer 30 18 50 80 75 67 Journeyman mason 40 24 37 60 56 50 Journeyman locksmith, carpenter, etc. 50 30 30 48 45 40 Sculptor, goldsmith 100 60 15 24 22\ 20

a s = sou(s). b In computing the "effective" earning, Rude has made allowance for 111 unpaid Feast Days in the days of the Old Regime. c Reveillon's factory was a large tapet factory in Paris.

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were so violent that they were called the Flour War rise of grain/bread began in March and it became (guerre des farines). In 1785 the shortage of hay and steeper in June: the drought made it obvious that the fodder was so severe that large numbers of cattle had harvest would be inadequate. The number and de- to be slaughtered, with the consequence that manure gree of violence of riots tended to escalate with time: reserves were depleted. In addition to those severe Taine states (1931a, p. 9) that, in the 4 months before dearth years Taine (1931, Book Fifth, passim) men- the Revolution, 300 riots took place in various parts tions 13 other years of shortage of a lighter nature. of the country. Note that Taine's figure does not in- One of the distinguishing features of the 1788 crop clude the number between August 1788 and the fol- shortfall was that it was virtually countrywide and its lowing March. effects protracted (Rude 1954, p. 248). There were During the riots, bakeries, granaries, mansions of no reserves from the previous years. Although the the rich, and grain-storage rooms of religious houses harvest of 1787 was good (approximately 10% above (by a royal order, religious houses had to keep a re- average), the government removed the ban on ex- serve for a year) were broken into, the prices of grain ports. The intention was good, for it was hoped that and flour were forcibly fixed in the markets (taxation foreign sales would stimulate production. On the other populaire), and land and river convoys of grain were hand, the measure was shortsighted. The frequent seized. bread crises of the recent past should have prompted Until spring 1789, the bread riots generally lacked action for building up reserves. political overtones. As an example for such "apolit- A simultaneous examination of the rainfall and ical" bread riots, we quote the description of such a temperature data of tables 1 and 3 of FR I explains disturbance by Young (1976, pp. 319-320). He de- the 1788 crop failure in France. scribes the case of a bread riot at Nangis, a city in In spring of 1781 (April-May), temperatures were lle-de-France, in June 1789 as follows: higher than in 1788 but rainfall was also high and, apparently, the high rainfall was able to supply much The people quarrel with the bakers, asserting the prices they of the water required by potential evapotranspiration. demand for bread are beyond the proportion of wheat, and In 1785 rainfall was low in many areas of France, proceed from words to scuffling, raise a riot, and then run but the temperatures were also low (1.5° to 2°C lower away with bread for nothing. This has happened at Nangis than in 1788, [see table 2 in FR I]) and, consequently, and many other markets; the consequence was that neither farmers nor bakers would supply them till they were in potential evapotranspiration could not have been high; danger of starving, and when they did come, prices under there was a measure of crop failure but not as severe such circumstances must necessarily rise enormously, which and not as widespread as in 1788. In 1788 there was aggravated the mischief, till troops became really necessary the unfortunate combination of relatively high spring to give security to those who supplied in the markets. temperatures and low rainfall countrywide, with the result that the grave crop failure described in section In over a dozen diplomatic dispatches between 3 developed. November 1788 and July 1789 to the British foreign secretary, the Marquess of Carmarthen, Lord Dorset, the British ambassador extraordinary in Paris, reports 7. Bread riots in 1788-89 on riots—mostly bread riots—indicating no protests against the ruling regime. In a dispatch dated 10 No- In earlier dearth years, the shortages and riots began vember 1788 (Despatches from Paris 1910, p. 121) late in winter, or even as late as spring. However, we read the following:4 "The price of Bread has again the harvest failure of 1788 was so serious and so been raised a French sol; the consequence of which widespread that the first riots had already broken out has already been felt in the instance of forty Bakers in August.3 As was pointed out in section 5, the price having been obliged to shut up Shop: In the Provinces these discontents have still risen higher; particularly at Pontamouson in Lorrain where the public Maga-

3 Daniel Hailes, British Minister Plenipotentiary in Paris, refers zines of Corn have been broken open and pillaged in his report of 26 August 1788 to the British foreign secretary, to by the populace." the revolt (often described as revolution) of the French nobility in 1787-88 against a proposed land tax on the nobility. (The com- moner landlords paid a land tax.) Hailes writes as follows: "But a few days before this Revolution (for so it may be called) everything] wore a most alarming aspect. The rise in the price of bread spread the apprehension of a revolt amongst the people of Paris; it was thought necessary to double the guards." We note that, as early as August 1788, there was popular unrest owing to the rising bread prices. Hailes' dispatch is reprinted in Despatches from Paris (1910, 4 The authors etc. retain Lord Dorset's use of upper-case letters p. 98). in this and preceding quotes.

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8. August 1788-April 1789: Most bread who noted that". . . the worst time after a bad harvest riots are of an apolitical character was always the early summer when the produce of the previous year's harvest was exhausted and the Until April 1 789 almost all riots lacked "anti-regime" new harvest was not yet brought in." Accordingly, character. In other words, the disturbances were al- in the months April-July 1789 about 300 riots broke most exclusively a consequence of the crop-failure- out in France. caused price rises of bread. As late as 30 April 1789, Starting in May 1789, that is, from the time of the Ambassador Dorset writes in his diplomatic despatch Estates General, the riots in Paris and in some of the of the day that "At Caen ... as well in many of the other cities tended to take on political overtones. This Provinces the origin of the discontents is the great change was due to the intensifying agitation on part scarcity of corn." of the bourgeoisie (lawyers, notaries, physicians, In January 1789, King Louis XVI agreed to convene writers, artists, financiers, directors of economy, and the Estates General of the three Estates—The Church, higher echelons of the civil service) who demanded the nobility, and the rest of the population, but, in the abolition of privileges of the first two Estates,6 the main, the bourgeoisie. In preparation for the Es- equal rights, etc. The bourgeoisie rode the crest of tates General, the king called for the submission of popular disturbances which, in most cases, were not "memoranda of grievances" (cahiers de doleances). related to the political and economic aims of the mid- The University of North Carolina historian George V. dle class. The poorer classes had no political program Taylor (1971) has analyzed and classified the cahiers and no leadership. What they wanted was inexpen- of the Third Estate according to the nature of the com- sive bread and easing of the feudal dues and taxes. plaints and demands set forth in them. We are par- ticularly interested in the memoranda of the Third Estate, for it is in these sources that we could expect 10. The severe winter 1788/89 revolutionary ideas in addition to demands for the improvement of the lot of the lower classes. Taylor The winter 1 788/89 was one of the harshest winters finds that in over 70% of memoranda coming from recorded in Europe (see, e.g., Lamb [1977, p. 507, parishes and the urban lower corps, and in 49% of 512, 569, 583, 587-589], Lamb [1985, p. 223], the urban classes, ". . . no one demanded that Kington [1980, p. 32], Lindgren et al. [1985]). Al- the structure and processes of government be though the winter 1708/09 produced some lower changed. . . . Public opinion was focused on local temperatures and heavier damages, the winter of 1788/ grievances" (Taylor 1971, pp. 489-490). 89 was more severe due to its length: On 86 days at Paris, temperatures sank below freezing; this com- It is seen from Taylor's analysis that the overwhelm- pares with an average of 45 in the years 1788/89- ing majority of the Third-Estate sources outside the 1817/18 (see figure 5). Figure 6 shows the absolute cities (the great majority of the population) did not lowest temperatures at the Paris Astronomical Ob- demand a total overthrow of the existing regime. We servatory during the winters 1770-1800. It was can thus say that until April at least, most of the de- — 21.8°C in 1788/89; although in the winter 1794/ mands were essentially as apolitical as the bread riots. 95 the absolute minimum reached -23.5° this was This was despite the fact that the great majority of the after the Revolution. Discussing the winter of 1788/ lower classes consisted of small and poor tenants, 89, some French writers point out that it was so cold oppressed by several feudal dues owed to landlords, that the wine froze in the caves, and barrels shat- by government taxes and by tithe to the Church.5 tered. (See the astronomer Flammarion's text [1888, p. 422] and a brief statement in Arago [1858, p. 297]. See also the paper Les grands hivers en France7 by 9. May-July 1789 Maze [1891, pp. 315-316] and a follow-up paper by de Vaulabelle [1889, pp. 803-805] who gives In FR I (p. 164) we quoted Cobban (1957, p. 136)

6 Under the rule of Louis XVI the privileges of the nobility were extended; e.g., in 1774, soon after his ascent to the throne, Louis reaffirmed the institution of the nobility (Parlements) to approve or reject royal and governmental decrees. In 1781 a royal decree 5 The church and nobility were almost exempt from taxes. One prohibited the admission of sons of commoners to military aca- of the aphorisms of Voltaire (1975) describes the situation where demies. Thus, the sons of commoners could not become officers the powerful and the rich contributed little to the finances of the either in the army or in the navy. A. Nelson, the son of a poor king and government, while the poor were taxed. Voltaire's aphor- parson with 11 children, would not have had the chance of be- ism states: "In general, the art of Government consists in taking coming an officer in the Franch navy. as much money as possible from one part of the citizens to give it to the other." 7 The French usually refer to severe winters as grands hivers.

Unauthenticated | Downloaded 10/06/21 11:56 PM UTC Bulletin American Meteorological Society 39 more details.) tober 1788 to 26 March 1789 [Jefferson 1958].) In a In 1789, Thomas Jefferson was American minister letter dated 29 November 1788 to John Jay, foreign in Paris. In his Autobiography (1944, pp. 91-92), he secretary of the United States he writes "The Turks refers to the severe winter 1788/89 and some of its have retired across the Danube. This movement in- consequences. He writes as follows: dicates their going into winter quarters, and the se-

But the hand of heaven weighed heavily indeed on the verity of weather must hasten it. [At Paris] The machinations of this junto; producing collateral incidents, thermometer was yesterday at 8° of Farenheit, that is, not arising out of the case, yet powerfully co-exciting the 24° below freezing; the degree of cold of the year nation to force a regeneration of its government, and over- 1740, which they count here amongst their coldest whelming with accumulated difficulties, this liberticide re- winters. This having continued many days, and still sistance. For, while laboring under the want of money for even ordinary purposes, in a government which required a likely to continue, and the wind from the northeast, million of livres a day, and driven to the last ditch by the renders it probable that all enterprize must be sus- universal call for liberty, there came on a winter of such pended between the three belligerent powers (Jeffer- severe cold, as was without example in the memory of man, son 1958, p. 305)." or in the written records of history. The Mercury was at In a letter dated 11 January 1 789 to Jay we read times 50° below the freezing point of Fahrenheit, and 22° below that of Reaumur. All out-door labor was suspended, All military operations in Europe seem to have been stopped and the poor, without the wages of labor were, of course, by the excessive severity of the weather. In this country it without either bread or fuel. The government found its ne- is unparalleled in so early a part of the winter, and in du- cessities aggravated by that of procuring immense quantities ration, having continued since the middle of November, of firewood, and of keeping great fires at all the cross streets, during which time it has been as low as 9° below nought, around which the people gathered in crowds, to avoid per- that is to say 41° below freezing by Farenheit's thermom- ishing with cold. Bread, too, was to be bought, and dis- eter, and has increased the difficulties of the administration tributed daily, gratis, until a relaxation of the season should here. They had before to struggle with the want of money, enable the people to work; and the slender stock of bread and want of bread for the people, and now the want of fuel stuff had for some time threatened famine, and had raised for them and want of emploiment. that article to an enormous price. So great, indeed, was the Dorset refers in several of his dispatches to the cold scarcity of bread, that, from the highest to the lowest citi- zen, the bakers were permitted to deal but a scanty allow- weather and its consequences. Bread riots are fre- ance per head, even to those who paid for it; and, in cards quently reported, but, in most cases, he saw no po- of invitation to dine in the richest houses, the guest was litical edge in the disturbances. On 11 December notified to bring his own bread. To eke out the existence 1788 (Despatches from Paris 1910, pp. 126-127) he of the people, every person who had the means, was called writes to the Marquess of Carmarthen: "Bread has on for a weekly subscription, which the Cures collected, and employed in providing messes for the nourishment of again been raised un sol, and is accordingly now at the poor, and vied with each other in devising such eco- 14 sols per lb. . . . the distress of the poor is already nomical compositions of food, as would subsist the greatest very great as may be conceived, and the unusual number with the smallest means. In several of his letters and reports from Paris dur- ing the winter, Jefferson makes mention of the low temperatures and some of their consequences. (See volume 14 of The Papers of Thomas Jefferson: 8 Oc-

FIG. 5. Number of days with temperatures below 0°C at the Paris Astronomical Observatory, 1788-1818. Although the latter FIG. 6. Absolute minima of temperatures for each of the winters period comprised a number of cold winters, the maximum number 1770-1800 at the Paris Astronomical Observatory. Sources: An- of subfreezing days occurred in winter 1788/89. Source: Annuaire nuaire de robservatoire Municipal de Montsouris (1889, p. 80) de robservatoire Municipal de Montsouris (1889, p. 74). and Renou (1889, pp. B214-215).

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severity of the weather is at this moment peculiarly tion" cannot be valid. First, the size of the area named unfortunate for them/' by Taine would have occupied, if correct, about 0.1 Dorset's dispatch of 18 December 1788 is of added of France's territory. Second, some of the territory meteorological interest. "Government has . . . taken included built-up and forest areas, including the fa- the most prudent measures to prevent the scarcity of mous forest of Rambouillet—the hunting ground of Bread, so much apprehended from the impossibility French kings—so that the affected crop-bearing area of working Wind-Mills and Water-Mills by reason of must have been less than 0.1. Third, it is likely that the present extreme severity of the weather, and at by July 1788 most of the grain crops of the region the same time to stop a further increase in the price were damaged by the drought. of Corn and flour . . . /' he wrote (Despatches from Paris 1910, p. 129). 12. August 1789: Anticyclonic We may add to Dorset's report that the ice on rivers conditions and their effect not only prevented the operation of water mills, but that it also halted the transportation of grain by rivers. Although the crop of 1789 was satisfactory, the scarc- This was a blow as transportation by road was inef- ity of bread continued. On 27 August 1789 Jefferson ficient and costly. And, as to the stoppage of water reported to Jay the following: "For several days past mills, a volume edited by Cobb and Jones (1988, p. a considerable proportion of the people have been 64) cites a report from The Christian's, Scholar's and without bread altogether; for tho' the new harvest is Farmer's Magazine (published in Elizabethtown, New begun, there is neither water nor wind to grind the Jersey) for April-May 1879, as follows: "London, Feb. grain. For some days past the people have besieged 11. The French Government have ordered one hundred the doors of the bakers, scrambled with one another hand mills to be erected in Paris for grinding flour, for bread, collected in squads all over the city" (Jef- to prevent in future any scarcity proceeding from se- ferson 1958, p. 358). vere frost." In table 2 we list the pressures measured at the 11. The hailstorm of 13 July 1788 Paris Astronomical Observatory, as published in a paper by Brunt (1925, his table VI). It is seen that in The ruling circles of France in 1788/89, and several August 1789 the pressure was high. Presumably, the historians in the nineteenth century attached great circulation was of anticyclonic type, with light winds. importance to a violent hailstorm that occurred in the Versailles region on 13 July 1788 and covered an 13. Conclusions unusually large area. According to Taine (1931a, p. 2), it covered an area of 60 x 60 leagues. The in- The correctness of the statement that the conse- tensity of the storm, the size of hailstones, and the quences of the drought of 1788 were able to desta- damage were so great that the British ambassador bilize public order in France is beyond all doubt. But reported on them at considerable length (see Des- the fact that the drought was able to make an impor- patches from Paris 1910, pp. 75-76) to the British tant contribution to the outbreak of the Revolution foreign secretary. It is possibly true that his report on and destruction of the Old Regime was due to the the hailstorm may have been the longest "meteoro- great social and political inequalities of the country. logical" report in diplomatic history. Dettwiller (1981) Some 90% of the population lived at or below a sub- has published a paper of the storm. sistence level; many were indigent and their number It was suggested by the ruling circles of France in depended on the price of bread and flour. However, 1788/89 and by several historians thereafter that the the French nobility and Church enjoyed far-reaching storm was reponsible for the failure of the crop in privileges which were extended in actual fact under 1788. It is readily seen that the foregoing "explana- Louis XVI's reign.

TABLE 2. Atmospheric station-level pressure at the Paris The writer and politician Chateaubriand remarked Astronomical Observatory (about 100 m MSL) in millimeters of (quoted by Lefebvre 1962, p. 17) that the patricians mercury (700 + ) (Brunt 1925, p. 287) (i.e., nobility) began the Revolution8 and the "ple- beians" completed it. Lefebvre adds: "Completed by Year. Mar. Apr. May June July Aug. Sept. the plebeians, it made certain the advent of the 1784 50.75 54.20 63.20 59.70 60.30 59.22 59.33 bourgeoisie." We can reformulate the second part of 1785 57.55 62.15 59.01 61.89 57.58 55.93 56.09 Lefebvre's addition as follows: It made certain the 1786 51.97 54.64 58.55 58.72 61.11 58.73 57.70 advent of the bourgeoisie with the important help of 1787 56.12 56.14 56.93 57.85 58.53 61.66 58.84 1788 51.99 63.46 62.08 58.29 64.16 62.49 58.38 1789 53.10 56.82 59.78 59.49 60.08 62.34 60.63 1790 62.32 51.93 55.52 60.42 56.40 59.99 59.83 8 The "revolt" of the aristocracy in 1787 against tax raises.

Unauthenticated | Downloaded 10/06/21 11:56 PM UTC Bulletin American Meteorological Society 41 the bread riots and, in final analysis, with the help of 1958. The Papers of Thomas Jefferson. Vol. 14: 8 October the drought of 1788. 1788 to 26 March 1789. ed. J. P. Boyd, W. H. Gaines, Jr. and J. H. Harrison, Jr. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univ. Press. Kington, J. A. 1980. Daily weather mapping from 1781: A detailed synoptic examination of weather and climate during the decade Acknowledgments. The writers are pleased to thank Prof. H. leading up to the French Revolution. Climatic Change, 3, 7-36. Pruppacher, Institute of Meteorology, University of Mainz, Mainz, Labrousse, C.-E. 1944. Le crise de I'economie franqaise a la fin de W. Germany, for taking care of the production of figure 1. We lAncien Regime et au debut de la Revolution, I. Apercus ge- owe special thanks to Ms. Hannah Thorp Petersen and Ms. Conny neraux, sources, methode, objectifs. La crise de la viticulture. Jensen, Institute of Geophycics, University of Copenhagen, Den- Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. 664 pp. mark, for preparing figures 2, 3, 5, and 6. —— R. Romano and F.-G. Dreyfus. 1970. Le prix du froment en Finally, we wish to acknowledge the gracious permission granted France au temps de la monnaie stable (1726-1913). Ecole Pra- by Librairie Larousse, Paris, France, for reproducing a diagram of tique des Hautes Etudes, Vle Sec., Centre de Recherches His- prices of wheat and rye printed in the volume Historie de France, toriques. Monnaie, Prix, Conjoncture, Vol. IX. S.E.V.P.E.N., dynasties et revolutions de 1348 a 1852, p. 266. Their diagram is Paris. figure 4 herein. Lamb, H. H. 1977. Climate: Present:, Past and Future. Vol. 2: Climatic History and the Future. London: Methuen & Co. 1985. Climate, History and the Modern World. London and References New York: Methuen. Lefebvre, G. 1954. Etudes sur la Revolution Franqaise. Paris: Presses Annuaire de l-Observatoire municipal de Montsuris pour Van 1889. Universitaires de France. 1889. Paris. 1962. The French Revolution, Vol. I: From Its Origins to 1793. Arago, F. 1858. Oeuvres. Notices scientifiques, Vol. V. Gide, Paris New York: Columbia University Press. and T. O. Weigel, Leipzig. 1963. Etudes sur la Revolution Franqaise, 2nd rev. ed. With Brazell, J. H. 1968. London Weather. London: HMSO. an Introduction by A. Soboul, Paris: Presses Universitaires de Brunt, D. 1925. Periodicities in European weather. Philos. Trans. France. Roy. Soc. London. 225A: 247-302. Lindgren, S., J. Neumann, M. F. Tiepolo and E. Zolli. 1985. Winter Cobb, R., and C. Jones. 1988. The French Revolution, Voices from 1788-89: The Lagoon of Venice freezes over. Meteor. Rdsch. a Momentous Epoch, 1789-1795. London: Simon & Schuster. 38: 112-118. Cobban, A. 1957. A History of Modern France. Vol. I. London: Maze, C. 1891. Les grands hivers en France (1). Cosmos. 18: 313- Penguin-Pelikan Books. 316. Despatches from Paris, 1784-1790, Vol. II. Ed. O. Browning. Neumann, J. 1977. Great historical events that were significantly Camden Third Ser., Vol. XIX. London: Offices of the Camden affected by the weather: 2, The year leading to the Revolution Society. of 1789 in France. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc. 58: 163-167. Dettwiller, J. 1978. Historique: La Revolution de 1789 et la me- Renou, E. 1880. Etudes sur le climat de Paris. Annates du Bureau teorologie. Bull. dTnformation de la Meteorologie Nationale. Central Meteorol. Memoires 1880. No. 40, 24-33. 1889. Etudes sur le climat de Paris. 2eme partie (tempera- 1981. L'orage du 13 juillet 1788. La Meteor. Vle ser., No. tures). Annales du Bureau Central Meteor. Memoires 1887. 24, 107-111. Rude, G. E. 1954. Prices, wages and popular movements in Paris de Vaulabelle, A. 1899. Le froid et les hivers rigoureux. Cosmos. during the French Revolution. Econ. Hist. Rev. 6: 246-267. 49, 803-805. 1981. The Crowd In History. A Study of Popular Disturbances Doyle, W., 1987. Origins of the French Revolution. Oxford Univ. in France and England, 1730-1848. London: Lawrence and Wis- Press, Oxford, 247 pp. hart. Duby, G. (ed.). 1971. Histoire de France, dynasties et revolutions, Taine, H. A. 1931. The Ancien Regime. Translated by J. Durand. de 1348 a 1852, Vol. II. Paris: Librairie Larousse. New York: P. Smith. Flammarion, C. 1888. LAtmosphere. Paris: Librairie Hachette et Taylor, G. V. 1971. Revolutionary and nonrevolutionary content Cie. in the cahiers of 1789: An interim report. French Hist. Studies. Gamier, M. 1974. Longues Series de Mesures de Precipitations en 7: 479-502. France. Zone 1, Zone 2, Zone 3, Zon^ 4. Memorial de la Me- Voltaire, F.-M. 1975. The Portable Voltaire. Edited with an Intro- teorologie Nationale, No. 53, Fascicules No. 1, No. 2, No. 3, duction by B. R. Redman. New York: Viking Press. No. 4. Paris: Meteorologie Nationale. Wales-Smith, B. G. 1971. Monthly and annual totals of rainfall Hufton, O. H. 1974. The Poor of the Eighteenth Century France, representative of Kew, Surrey, from 1697 to 1970. Meteor. Mag. 1750-1789. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 100: 345-360. Jefferson, Th. 1944. The Life and Selected Writings of Thomas Young, A. 1976. Voyages en France 1787 1788 1789. Translated, Jefferson. Edited and with an Introduction by A. Koch and W. with an Introduction and Notes by H. See, and a Preface by A. Peden. New York: The Modern Library. (This volume includes Mathiez. Paris: Librairie A. Colin. (Three volumes with contin- Thomas Jefferson's Autobiography.) uous pagination.) •

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