Food Riots During The Old Regime

During the Old Regime, food riots were the common form of protest for peasants. George Rudé indicates that he regards 1709 as a "great" famine year, which caused hundreds of people to die of starvation from poor grain harvests. Bread prices during August of 1725 were higher than the maximum price in 1709. Per Barbier, who Rude quotes, this price may have been as high as 32 sous for a four-pound loaf. This angered the populace and forced the removal of the minister of finance, M. d'Ombreval, from his post. The price of a four-pound loaf of bread rose to twenty sous in September of 1740. In the year 1750, a controversy over the liberalization of grain trade helped introduce the concept of public opinion through the minds of French philosophers. Grain riots, in addition to demonstrations against the Archbishop of Paris who refused a dying nun the sacrament, spread through the land.
Bread prices remained high into the next year, and leaflets of a seditious nature spread. On them was an inscription which, translated into English, read "Long live the Parlements! Death to the king and the bishops!" French politics, in debating over the liberalized grain trade, broke out of the absolutist mold and shattered the reign of silence
With France’s history of rioting by the peasant class, it comes as little surprise that this rioting occurred.
Grain crops failed in 1788, which led to bread increasing in price. There was a bad harvest in 1788, which resulted in a dramatic increase in bread prices in the summer of 1789 and the threat of starvation for Louis XVI's poorest subjects. Low yields of grain were inevitable for peasants who were forced to grow grain for their subsistence in poor soil. A massive hailstorm swept through the north of France, destroying much of the ripening harvest. In Aix, on March 24, rioters gathered at the doors of the assembly whose first consul refused to reduce bread