The French Revolution’s Mass Panic
As the French Revolution raged, the peasants and urban poor of the Ancien regime, abused for centuries, came to see their aristocratic oppressors as more than a parasitic class that lived in luxury off their toil and sweat. Many came to view them in demonic terms, and believed that they were out to do evil just for the sake of evil. Conspiracy theories abounded about what the elites were up to, chief among them the Pacte de Famine, or Famine Plot. It was born of a poor understanding of the economics of supply and demand. From 1715 – 1789, France’s population had increased by 6 million, from 22 million to 28 million. Grain output did not increase at the same pace. Accordingly, higher demand for the same amount of grain led to higher prices.
However, many attributed the price increases not to basic economics. Instead, they suspected a plot by the elites to deliberately withhold grain in order to starve the poor into subservience. In 1789, grain shortages led to higher bread prices that hit the lower classes hard. In their distress, the poor’s belief in the Famine Plot evolved to include not only diabolical schemes to starve them, but to murder and burn them as well. Driven by a panic aptly named “The Great” Fear, France’s poor took matters into their own hands, and went after the elites. To be fair, France’s upper classes had it coming for centuries of exploitation. However, they were innocent of the Hunger Plot.
