The eighteenth century was a period of prosperity, certainly when compared with the final decades of Louis XIV's reign. As material wellbeing improved, the threat, if not the fear, of famine receded. Between 1728 and 1789 the average price of a loaf of bread doubled and more on just four occasions, whereas price spirals of this magnitude occurred nine times between 1661 and 1715. For whatever reason, nationwide ‘subsistence crises’ were becoming rarer, and this perception was reflected in the bullish confidence of landowners as they clamoured for an end to controls over the grain trade. For the ‘never had it so good’ possessing classes of the 1750s and 1760s, France stood poised on the threshold of an age of plenty. With an expanding population, untapped agricultural potential and a vigorous merchant marine, she would shortly outstrip her powerful rival across the Channel. All that was needed was an enlightened government committed to removal of the institutional fetters on agriculture, industry and trade. Such, at least, was the view of France's homegrown political economists – the physiocrats – as they measured the sinews of the nation from the vantage point of the relatively uncomplicated mid-century decades.

Yet, historians have been less sanguine about the performance of the French economy in the eighteenth century. The perception of growth and prosperity is not to be challenged, perhaps, but it should certainly be qualified.