ABSTRACT
Beginning in 1816, “the year without a summer,” widespread crop failures led to food riots in nearly every country of Europe, producing a revolutionary fervor that swept the continent for three years. In France, for example, the existing government fell and the conservative Due de Richelieu was asked to form a new one. Everywhere governments struggled to maintain social order as an unprecedented crime epidemic surged in the cities. The Swiss were stunned by the wave of criminal activity. Even the number of suicides increased dramatically, along with executions of women for infanticide.
