Anthropometric history of the French Revolution in the Province of Orleans
Highlights
► We find a long term general decline of the biological standard of living during the 18 century in France. ► We estimate that the height of the population of the French province Orleans (southeast of Paris) born between 1710 and 1760 declined from 164.7 cm to 163.1 cm. ► During the last two decades before the French Revolution the most important reduction amounting to 0.5 cm took place. ► The results support a Ricardian–Malthusian interpretation of the causes of the French Revolution. ► In the debate ‘Revolution de la misère ou de la prospérité’ our findings support that the French Revolution was a culmination of a long-lasting economic malaise during the final phases of the Ancien Régime. ► The reasons lied in growth of population and an institutional structure which hindered the diffusion of technical progress.
Introduction
How the French standard of living developed in the 18th century is still not entirely clear, leading to different interpretations of the French Revolution. One group of historians including Jaures (1901) and Lefebvre (1989) maintained that the French Revolution was a political event triggered by the economic prosperity of the 18th century and the resulting rise of the bourgeoisie. In contrast, a second group of historians that includes Mathiez (1922) and Labrousse (1944) saw the French Revolution as the product of a long-lasting economic malaiseduring the Ancien Régime that destabilized society. In recent years, a debate has emerged about Labrousse's (1933) suggestion that real wages decreased substantially in the second half of the 18th century (Weir, 1991, Daudin, 2004). This debate is mostly conducted in terms of real income, the classical measure of living standards. However, a number of problems are associated with this concept. First, nominal wages and prices were rarely recorded systematically in the 18th century. Moreover, many wages were paid in kind, making calculation of real wages even more difficult, and furthermore variations in unemployment are not accounted for as data on unemployment is unavailable (Lepetit and Sinarellis, 1995). Thus, estimates of real income have their limitations and are not likely to settle the debate on the course of living standards in the 18th century.
Instead of conventional indicators we use trends in French physical stature as a proxy measure of the “biological standard of living, in order to estimate the evolution of nutritional status, an important dimension of welfare (Komlos, 1989). Since food expenditure made up a large share of disposable income in the 18th century, the anthropometric method also enables us to draw tentative inferences about real income. The following study investigates the trend in the biological standard of living from 1715 to the turn of the 19th century and is an extension of Komlos’ (2003) study, in which he examined the biological standard of living in France during the period 1670–1760. He argued that heights declined indeed during the second half of the century thereby connecting to the ‘let them eat cake’ version of the storming of the Bastille, but pointed out at the same time that the diminution in height was not worse than in other parts of Europe, and also did not reach 17th century crisis levels. Thus, he inferred that French economic performance alone is an insufficient explanation for the outbreak of the political turmoil (Komlos, 2003). Similar studies exist for the birth cohorts of 1784–1902 (Weir, 1997) and 1780–1920 (Heyberger, 2005) but they do not pertain, in the main, to the pre-revolutionary period.
Section snippets
Data
A sample of 29,523 recruits was drawn from the Military Archives (Chateau de Vincennes)1
Minimum height requirements
A minimum height requirement existed for both militia and soldiers. Hence, we exclude men who were shorter than of the minimum height requirement and estimate the trend in height with truncated regression analysis in STATA (Komlos, 2004). This method requires information about the truncation point. For militia, minimum height requirement was clearly stated at 5 pieds 0 pouces and 0 lignes (60 pouces, or 162.4 cm). It remained unchanged during the period under investigation and was strictly
Results
Regression analysis was carried out for three subsamples, differentiated by the method of draft (the militia was drafted by lottery and the soldiers were drafted by general conscription) and unit of height measurement (pouces or cm).6 The reason we need to separate the sample by the unit of measurement because truncated regression performs best in the original units on account of
National and international comparison
Other studies on French heights in the 18th century include Komlos (2003) for the period 1710–1770, Weir (1997) for the period 1780–1799 (Fig. 7), and Heyberger (2007) for the period 1780–1910.
Komlos’ results are based on soldiers while we have militia for much of the period. Weir also uses soldiers, but covers all of France and not just Orleans province. Our estimate is remarkably identical to that of Komlos. The estimate of the height of the militia is the same as that of Komlos for the birth
Conclusion
Our analyses show that the biological standard of living in the French province of Orleans declined over the course of the 18th century. This is the most important result of our study. The decline is significant both for militia and soldiers and independent of model specifications. Soldiers born at the beginning of the 19th century experienced the lowest biological standard of living in the whole century. Average height for this birth cohort was 1.53 cm lower compared to their counterparts born
Acknowledgments
We are grateful for the advice and support of John Komlos. We thank Martin Hiermeyer for the translation of the text.
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