Marie Thérèse of France

Marie-Thérèse was the eldest child of King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette of France, and their only child to reach adulthood. In 1799, she married her cousin Louis Antoine, Duke of Angoulême, the eldest son of Charles X of France, henceforth becoming the Duchess of Angoulême. She was the only member of her immediate family to survive the French Revolution.

Commoners often went barefoot and wore secondhand

Ordinary rural people in France often went barefoot during the warmer seasons and relied heavily on secondhand clothing, as buying new outfits was exceptional.

Common clothing colors

Common women’s clothing colors were mostly dark, with black, gray, and brown making up 45 percent of garments, while red accounted for 21 percent.

Decorating for the Fête-Dieu festival

During the annual Fête-Dieu celebration in Paris, residents decorated the streets by hanging various types of tapestries from their houses, sometimes as high as the second floor.

Popular dances included minuet and contredanse

The minuet and the contredanse were the two most popular dances, with the latter being a favorite figure dance involving four couples. People frequently organized and enjoyed balls in the provinces during this period.

Dangerous conditions on poorly maintained roads

Travelers in carriages sometimes had to pay local peasants to walk alongside and support the carriage to prevent it from tipping over on flooded or muddy roads. In severe weather, travelers were occasionally forced to wait for days in miserable inns until conditions improved.

Fast winter mountain descent by sled

Adventurous travelers crossing the Alps at Mont-Cenis in winter could descend into France on a sled in a 15-minute thrill ride called the ramasse. The sleds were guided by a conductor who steered the craft down the snowy slopes at high speed.

Limited rural schooling

In many rural areas, primary education was inconsistently provided by the local priest or his vicar, focusing only on basic reading, writing, and catechism.

Simple peasant housing

Most peasant homes were single-room structures built of mud with thatched roofs, lacking ceilings and window glass.

Bread Was the Staff of Life

In 1775, a French laboring family of four typically consumed 1.2 tons of grain per year, with urban workers spending half their salary on bread.

Typical Peasant Diet in Rural France

Ordinary rural diets consisted of rye or oat bread, vegetable soups, and dairy, while meat was rarely eaten except for occasional pork.

Meat as a luxury item

Meat was considered a luxury product for workers; a master worker could afford 300 grams of meat per day, while in 1771 some bourgeois complained of meat prices rising to 12, 14, or 15 sous per pound.

The high cost of footwear

Heavy taxes on leather made shoes very expensive, often forcing poor peasants to own only one pair for their entire lives or rely on wooden shoes. A pair of wooden shoes cost 9 sous 6 deniers in the countryside in 1790.

Common jobs in 18th-century France

Most ordinary people worked in manual agriculture or as urban day-laborers, while others labored in domestic industries like weaving and spinning. In cities, workers were often employed in construction, shipbuilding, or as unskilled laborers in factories and workshops.

The reality of the daily workday

The workday typically began at sunrise and could last up to 14 hours in summer, though it was often shorter in winter. Workers frequently had only two meals a day, with a common breakfast consisting of coffee with milk bought from street vendors for two sous.