Social tensions were always present in Old Regime France, and collective violence was no rarity. The religiously inspired violence of the second half of the sixteenth century often had social overtones. Protestantism found a following among some nobles and among artisans and educated elites in urban areas; it was less successful in the countryside, outside of a few specific regions, and among the urban lower classes. The seventeenth century saw a number of important regional uprisings by peasants, who often turned to local seigneurs for leadership. These uprisings were directed primarily against the royal government's relentless drive to collect ever more tax revenue to pay for the wars that marked the reigns of Louis XIII and Louis XIV. These movements were significant signs of the social cost imposed by the growth of the absolutist state, but their impact was limited by their focus on local issues. Considerable social disorder also accompanied the series of revolts against royal authority known as the Fronde (1648-1653), but these movements, too, failed to coalesce into a coherent challenge to the existing social order and collapsed when their elite leaders made peace with the king. The centralized administration developed under Louis XIV and perfected over the course of the eighteenth century was more effective both in preventing conditions from degenerating to the point where revolts were likely and in repressing protests before they could spread.

From 1500 to around 1750, the social system of the French Old Regime thus maintained itself largely intact. The slow pace of technological and economic change and the absence of an alternative to the traditional hierarchical order ruled out any radical alterations. Around the middle of the eighteenth century, changes that undermined this social order began to occur. One of the most significant of these, although contemporaries were only dimly aware of it, was the beginning of a sustained growth in population. By 1740 the population had risen to an unprecedented level of over 24 million; after a brief setback in the following decade, it grew even more rapidly over the next four decades, reaching a figure of about 28 million by 1789. The causes of this marked increase are unclear. Population growth was well under way before any significant changes in agriculture occurred. Changes in medical practices had at best a marginal effect; infant mortality remained high. A shift in climate--the ''little ice age,'' with its many cold, wet summers and bitter winters and a cycle of warmer weather that resulted in good harvests--may have been one factor; the cumulative effect of slight improvements in farming methods, birthing practices, and sanitary arrangements may also have contributed.

The eighteenth-century population increase--which, although substantial, was more gradual than that in other European countries--had important social effects. With more peasants competing for opportunities to farm, landlords were able to raise rents, and the larger number of mouths to feed meant more demand for their marketable surplus. The gulf between rich and poor thus tended to grow. Some developments, however, slowed the growth of discontent. Although fewer peasants had enough land to maintain themselves, the gradual spread of rural manufacturing industries organized on the putting-out system provided many peasant families with a second source of income. Since most of the increased income from agriculture ended up in the hands of urban landowners--nobles and bourgeois--who spent it on fancier homes, additional servants, and other forms of consumption, France's cities absorbed some of the surplus rural population. . . .

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