338Chapter 18
harvested unripe grain and roasted it, prolonging both
life and famine. They turned to making bread from
ground chestnuts or acorns. They ate grass and weeds,
cats and dogs, rodents, even human flesh. Such disas-
ters were not rare. The records of Tuscany show that
the three-hundred-year period between 1450 and 1750
included one hundred years of famine and sixteen years
of bountiful harvests. Agriculture was more successful in
England, but the period between 1660 and 1740 saw
one bad harvest in every four years. France, an agricul-
turally fortunate country, experienced sixteen years of
national famine during the eighteenth century, plus lo-
cal famines.
The worst famine of the Old Regime, and one of
the most deadly events in European history, occurred in
Finland in 1696–97. The extreme cold weather of the
Little Ice Age produced in Finland a summer too short
for grain to ripen. Between one-fourth and one-third of
the entire nation died before that famine passed—a
death rate that equaled the horrors of the bubonic
plague. The weather produced other famines in that
decade. In northern Europe, excess rain caused crops to
rot in the field before ripening. In Mediterranean Eu-
rope, especially in central Spain, a drought followed by
an onslaught of grasshoppers produced a similar ca-
tastrophe. Hunger also followed seasonal fluctuations.
In lean years, the previous year’s grain might be con-
sumed before July, when the new grain could be har-
vested. Late spring and early summer were
consequently dangerous times when the food supply
had political significance. Winter posed special threats
for city dwellers. If the rivers and canals froze, the
barges that supplied the cities could not move, and the
water-powered mills could not grind flour.
Food supplies were such a concern in the Old
Regime that marriage contracts and wills commonly
provided food pensions. These pensions were intended
to protect a wife or aged relatives by guaranteeing an
annual supply of food. An examination of these pen-
sions in southern France has shown that most of the
food to be provided was in cereal grains. The typical
form was a lifetime annuity intended to provide a sup-
plement; the average grain given in wills provided
fewer than fourteen hundred calories per day.
Diet, Disease, and Appearance
Malnutrition, famine, and disease were manifested in
human appearance. A diet so reliant on starches meant
that people were short compared with later standards.
For example, the average adult male of the eighteenth
century stood slightly above five feet tall. Napoleon,
ridiculed today for being so short, was as tall as most of
his soldiers. Meticulous records kept for Napoleon’s
Army of Italy in the late 1790s (a victorious army) re-
veal that conscripts averaged 5′ 2 ′′in height. Many fa-
mous figures of the era had similar heights: the
notorious Marquis de Sade stood 5′ 3 ′′. Conversely,
people known for their height were not tall by later
standards. A French diplomat, Prince Talleyrand, ap-
pears in letters and memoirs to have had an advantage
in negotiations because he “loomed over” other states-
men. Talleyrand stood 5′ 8 ′′. The kings of Prussia re-
cruited peasants considered to be “giants” to serve in
the royal guards at Potsdam; a height of 6′ 0 ′′defined a
giant. Extreme height did occur in some families. The
Russian royal family, the Romanovs, produced some
monarchs nearly seven feet tall. For the masses, diet
limited their height. The superior diet of the aristoc-
racy made them taller than peasants, just as it gave
them a greater life expectancy; aristocrats explained
such differences by their natural superiority as a caste.
Just as diet shaped appearance, so did disease. Vita-
min and mineral deficiencies led to a variety of afflic-
tions, such as rickets and scrofula. Rickets marked
people with bone deformities; scrofula produced hard
tumors on the body, especially under the chin. The
most widespread effect of disease came from smallpox.
As its name indicates, the disease often left pockmarks
on its victims, the result of scratching the sores, which
itched terribly. Because 95 percent of the population
contracted smallpox, pockmarked faces were common.
The noted Anglo-Irish dramatist Oliver Goldsmith de-
scribed this in 1760:
Lo, the smallpox with horrid glare
Levelled its terrors at the fair;
And, rifling every youthful grace,
Left but the remnant of a face.
Smallpox and diseases that discolored the skin such as
jaundice, which left a yellow complexion, explain the
eighteenth-century popularity of heavy makeup and ar-
tificial “beauty marks” (which could cover a pockmark)
in the fashions of the wealthy. Other fashion trends of
the age originated in poor public health. The vogue
for wigs and powdered hair for men and women alike
derived in part from infestation by lice. Head lice
could be controlled by shaving the head and wearing
a wig.
Dental disease marked people with missing or dark,
rotting teeth. The absence of sugar in the diet delayed
tooth decay, but oral hygiene scarcely existed because