dictable harvests averaged outand overall lowered the agricultural profits. In themid seventeen-eighties, there was also a shortage ofhay, making it difficult to obtain food for livestock ataffordable prices. This resulted in an upsurge of salesof cattle, sheep, and hogs in a nimietied market. Wagesdid not remain constant with inflation, infact, theydecreased by 1789. In normal times, food as well asclothing were the two largest constituents of theirexpenditure. But by the brink of the revolution, breadalone, was consuming up to ninety percent of an averageworker’s wages, leaving very little left to be spent onclothing3. The direct result: less was spent onclothing, and weavers were laid off at a time when theprice of bread was tautening their minimal wages. War, and essentially military costs, were thegreatest contributors to the ever-increasing national -5-debt. The wars of Louis XIV had imposed a mangledbenefaction of debt on France’s finances. Four majoroverseas and European wars against its longtime rival,Britain, ceased to help matters. France had also beeninvolved in the American Revolution, helping to ensueindependence for the Americans. France successivelyfailed to pay on its debt while Britain reformed toincur enough taxes during times of peace to finance itsdebts while at war. France, on the other hand haddesigned to coerce the King’s income and borrow moremoney for its cost overseas, and domestically. WhenKing Louis XVI ceded the throne in 1774, the nationaldeficit was already forty million livres. The totalrevenues for 1786 amounted to about four hundredseventy-five million livres, but the total expenditureswere about five-hundred eighty-seven million, leaving adeficit of a hundred-twelve million livres4. Theprimary reason for this decadence was that the nationpersistently increased borrowing, and therefore,consequently increasing the interest and reimbursements. A number of makeshifts we...
