ABSTRACT
In many parts of France the quarter century from the Revolution of 1789 to Napoléon's defeat at Waterloo proved a time of profound upheaval and disruption to everyday life. In some ways these years saw the emergence of a 'new' France since the feudal order had been abolished, new codes of law and landownership had been fashioned, and new systems of administration and taxation had been created, but in more fundamental respects little had changed (Soboul 1968). The population of the whole of France had increased by some 7 million during the 18th century, with 1 million of that total being added by the annexation of Lorraine and Corsica. Grain growing was unquestionably the pilot sector of the rural economy at the end of the First Empire, with no less than half of France being under the plough according to the ancien cadastre.
