The article describes drought and harvest failure in the year leading up to the Revolution and links these conditions to famine and unemployment. It states that the drought occurred in a period of mounting social and political tension, and that the famine contributed to hardship in France before 1789.

Professor Labrousse has shown that from the middle of the 18th century the price of essentials in France, and particularly of bread, rose much faster than wages. While wages rose between the periods 1726–1741 and 1771–1789 by only 22 per cent, the price of necessities rose by an average of 62 per cent. The rise in the case of bread was so steep that a worker who, in the first period, might need to spend 50 per cent of his income on bread, would have needed to spend in 1789 as much as 88 per cent, to obtain a similar amount. There was general famine, or severe grain shortage in France in 1709, 1725, 1749, 1775, 1785, and 1788, and with each crisis food riots, more or less widespread, were associated.

The 1780s were a particularly poor decade for harvests, caused by heavy rains, severe droughts, a volcanic eruption in 1783 and a July 1788 hailstorm. Alpha History says these harvest failures left France short of food by the start of 1789, and that shortages drove up demand and prices in cities and towns.

The entry states that "with the failure of the grain crop over two successive years (1788–1789), the French capital and its environs were faced with a situation even more volatile than that of 1775." It adds that "government policy again came under public scrutiny, as the price of bread rose to record heights" and notes that "grain riots began in April, 1789, and continued throughout the summer." The text explicitly connects the failed grain harvests in 1788–1789 to food shortages in Paris and rising bread prices.

According to Sylvia Neely's A Concise History of the French Revolution, the average 18th-century worker spent half his daily wage on bread. But when the grain crops failed two years in a row, in 1788 and 1789, the price of bread shot up to 88 percent of his wages. Many blamed the ruling class for the resulting famine and economic upheaval.

The price was depressed by subsidies paid to the bakers. Arthur Young, Travels in France during the Years 1787, 1788, 1789, observed the situation in various regions. His account is frequently cited by historians for contemporary evidence of the economic pressures on the French population, including the impact of grain shortages and bread prices in the years immediately preceding the Revolution.

Flour War, a series of disturbances in France in April–May 1775 caused by the rising price of grain and bread. The riots were provoked by Louis XVI’s controller-general of finances, Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot, who had freed the grain trade from controls in 1774. The bad harvest of 1774, combined with speculation and hoarding, led to sharp increases in grain prices, and thus in the price of bread, a staple for the French population.

The article describes how in July 1788 hailstorms "smashed the crops standing" and "thus increased a few months later the price of bread, thereby exciting popular anger to the point of provoking riots; these in turn produced disorder and triggered revolutionary agitation." It adds that "it is in fact the whole two-year period 1787–88 that must be blamed" rather than a single incident, linking successive poor harvests to dear bread and social unrest on the eve of the Revolution.

The piece explains a recurring pattern under the Ancien Régime: "a bad cereal harvest (linked to a meteorological problem) is the starting point of the problem; the scarcity of cereals leads to a sharp increase in their price" and then to famine and broader crisis. It notes that the 18th century was affected by cold periods including "1785–1789" and asks whether the unfavorable meteorological context of 1788–1789, with a "flambée des prix du blé" (surge in wheat prices) in May and June 1789, could have been a trigger for the economic crisis of 1789.

The guide says that harvest failures in the 1770s and late 1780s led to increased food prices, poverty, and hardship. It adds that as bread prices rose and real wages fell, a larger share of poor households’ income went to subsistence.

Britannica’s overview of the French Revolution notes that in 1788 and 1789 France was struck by "poor harvests" which led to "shortages and high prices" for grain and bread. It describes how these economic difficulties, including rising bread prices that hit the urban poor particularly hard, contributed to the broader social and political crisis that culminated in the Revolution.

TIME reports that a severe drought in spring 1788 and a major hailstorm in July 1788 devastated crops in France. It says grain shortages sent prices skyrocketing and that families who previously spent about half their income on food were later devoting more than 90 percent of their household budgets to food.

The Flour War was a series of riots in April and May 1775 in France, triggered by the deregulation of the grain market, leading to increases in grain prices and subsequently bread prices. Contributing factors to the riots include poor weather and harvests, and the withholding by police of public grain supplies from the royal stores in 1773–1774. Owners of grain started to speculate by storing grain. In attempt to corner the market, they also tended to buy en masse in areas of good harvests to sell in areas of bad harvests where profits could be greater, spreading price increases and shortages countrywide. Mere rumors of food shortage led to the Réveillon riots in April 1789. Rumors of a plot aiming to destroy wheat crops in order to starve the population provoked the Great Fear in the summer of 1789.

Discussing cereal production in 18th‑century France, the article notes that climatic hazards had a major impact: "The vagaries, essentially climatic, then have a great influence on wheat production: scarcity makes the price rise." It records several episodes where mediocre or poor harvests caused sharp increases in cereal prices and crises, and states that in the 1760s "a liberalization attempt coincides with poor harvests: prices, now free, rise. The poorest can no longer feed themselves." This pattern of harvest failure leading to dear grain and hunger is presented as typical of the late Ancien Régime.

In discussing food prices, Kropotkin notes that "bread, which formerly cost three sous a pound, now rose to six sous and even to eight sous in the small towns round Paris" and that "certain towns, such as Grenoble, had decided since September 1789, to purchase grain for itself and to deal severely with monopolists." He describes sharp increases in bread prices and local authorities intervening in grain supply immediately after 1789, situating these developments in the context of earlier scarcity and poor grain harvests.

The author writes that "successive poor harvests struck France during the 1780s. They were to play a crucial role in the emergence of the French Revolution of 1789." These "mediocre harvests led to a serious food crisis" and "caused a rise in the price of bread, the staple food of the population." A contemporary report from 1785 is cited: because of extreme drought "there were neither flax nor hay nor buckwheat" and livestock starved; "18‑pound bread rose to 43 sols 6" and rye to 33 sols, illustrating how bad harvests translated into more expensive bread.

The narrative states that "bad harvests contributed to revolutionary thoughts by raising bread prices. The bread prices in Paris were especially bad." It explains that when harvests failed, grain became scarce and the cost of bread rose, worsening the situation for ordinary people who depended on bread as a staple food. The story explicitly ties poor harvests, food shortages, and rising bread prices to the revolutionary climate in France.

By the late 1780s, France was facing a severe economic crisis. Bad harvests and food shortages pushed up the price of bread, the main food of the poor. Many peasants and urban workers struggled to feed their families, and bread riots broke out in several regions. These economic grievances were among the factors that fueled popular discontent against the monarchy in 1789.

In a discussion of subsistence problems in 18th‑century France, the text explains that one type of crisis "resulted from the consequences of a bad harvest, causing a shortage of grain and therefore a rise in prices, notably from the middle of the century." It emphasizes that, in the Ancien Régime economy, poor harvests directly produced grain scarcity and higher prices for essential foodstuffs such as bread.

Historians commonly note that poor harvests in 1788, especially after the severe hailstorm and drought, helped reduce grain supplies and raise bread prices in France in 1788–1789. This is a widely cited part of the pre-Revolution subsistence crisis.

In this historical analysis, the narrator states that the harvest of 1788 was "effectively poor, 20 to 30% below normal depending on the region" and that such deficits had previously led to crises like the "guerre des farines" in 1775, a revolt "provoked by the rise in the price of bread" following bad harvests. Later in the video he explains that in the Ancien Régime "the link between weakness of harvests and rise in the price of foodstuffs is an almost mechanical link" and that the rise in bread prices in 1789 was a consequence of the bad weather and poor harvest of 1788, even if this factor alone did not suffice to cause the Revolution.

Summarizing Ancien Régime food crises, the post notes that "at the end of the 18th century, successive poor harvests were added" to pre‑existing difficulties. As a result "the price of bread exploded. For the popular classes, this ..." introduced severe hardship, directly linking the bad harvests of the late 1780s with food shortages and soaring bread prices for ordinary French people.

The article says that from the late 1760s harsher weather caused consistently poor wheat harvests, and that the agricultural and climatic problems of the 1770s and 1780s contributed to poverty and economic crisis. It also notes that a catastrophic harvest failure in the summer of 1788 worsened the depression.

The accessible snippet indicates that drought was accompanied by famine and unemployment in the year leading to 1789. Because only a partial preview is available here, the exact wording and publication details cannot be fully verified from the snippet alone.

The post states that "as bread is the staple food in France, some historians say that when grain crops failed in 1788 and 1789, it caused bread prices to shoot up, which then resulted in famine and economic upheaval all throughout the country." It directly asserts a connection between the failure of grain crops in 1788–1789, soaring bread prices, and widespread hardship, reflecting a popularized summary of historical scholarship on the causes of unrest in France at the start of the Revolution.