The life of a French peasant in the 1700s

Each year, the cycle of work began with spring, when families prepared the fields for sowing.

They used wooden ploughs pulled by oxen or mules to break open the hardened soil, and women and children planted seeds and tended garden plots near the home.

Many regions continued to rely on the three-field rotation system, which had persisted in many areas since the Middle Ages and, by summer, the entire household had shifted to harvesting wheat, barley, oats, and rye.

During autumn, grapes had typically been pressed for wine, meat had been preserved, and grain had been stored in lofts or shared barns.

Then winter arrived. With the fields frozen and the sun low, peasants repaired tools, cared for livestock, and spun wool beside the hearth.

Children contributed in each season, and they learned practical skills through labour rather than formal education.

Most peasants had typically worked land that they did not own, as lords, monasteries, or royal agents held legal title to the fields, forests, and mills.

In exchange for access, tenants had commonly given a portion of their crop or had performed required labour services that were known as corvée.

In a similar way, banalités were fees for using the lord's mill, winepress, or communal oven, which typically added further burdens.

However, at times, the two terms changed without warning. When a new landholder inherited an estate or when a steward revised rent demands, families could lose their plot with no appeal.

Some worked under sharecropping agreements, but poor yields or storm damage often meant that little produce remained after the landlord's share had been taken.

Legal protection continued to be severely limited. Local courts that were under seigneurial control existed, yet they favoured landowner rights and preserved the social order rather than addressing complaints from those who were at the bottom. 

Alongside local obligations came crushing national taxes, since the taille, which was imposed directly on commoners, typically applied regardless of income.

Collection was strict, as tax officials, who often arrived with guards, calculated expected yield and demanded payment before the harvest had finished.

These intendants were royal administrators who acted on behalf of the crown, and they enforced these measures and reported directly to the royal court at the palace of Versailles.

Additional burdens came from the gabelle, a royal salt tax that controlled how much salt each family could buy or store.

Some provinces, such as Brittany, had relatively reduced obligations under the salt tax, which fuelled resentment in other, more heavily, taxed regions.

Without enough salt, families often struggled to preserve meat or cheese for winter.

Also, church demands added to the burden. The tithe was one tenth of the harvest, which the local parish collected annually.

Priests generally justified it as a spiritual duty, but its collection followed the same methods as state taxation.

However, wealthy landowners and clergy continued to be largely exempt from it.

As a result, many who had the least gave the most.

Behind it all, Catholicism influenced family decisions, farming customs, and festival dates.

Each village had a patron saint who was celebrated with processions and offerings such as St. Martin's Day on November 11, which indicated the end of the agricultural year.

The local priest, who conducted baptisms, marriages, and funerals, offered instruction in confession, penance, and the sacraments.

In many areas, however, the Church failed to meet the needs of the poor, as some parishes lacked permanent clergy, while others relied on overworked priests who travelled between scattered communities.

Even so, peasants commonly attended Mass regularly since they feared divine punishment for not doing so, and kept religious icons inside their homes in the hopes of blessings throughout the year.

Many also often believed in folk customs, charms, and seasonal rituals that blended Church teachings with older rural traditions.

Most cottages typically had one or two rooms that were constructed from wattle and daub with thatched roofs and dirt floors, while a single hearth was used for cooking and heat.

Straw bedding, wooden stools, and handmade chests held the family’s possessions.

Small plots of land near the house supported vegetables, while chickens, pigs, or goats lived in attached sheds or shared the main space.

Meals largely consisted of bread made from rye or barley, thick soups, and hard cheese.

In comparison, meat appeared only rarely. Wooden clogs, which were known as sabots, were used in many regions, though not universally, and they protected feet in the fields.

Meanwhile, marriage typically operated as a social contract between families, and children helped from a young age and cared for their elders when work grew too difficult.

Under Louis XV’s rule between 1715 and 1774, conditions for rural labourers failed to improve, as grain shortages, extreme weather, and a rising population frequently placed greater strain on available land.

During the winters of the 1740s and 1750s, many families faced severe starvation.

Earlier in the century, the Great Winter of 1709 had already destroyed crops and vineyards across France, and when bread prices rose, unrest followed, as isolated revolts broke out, such as the 1768 Flour War, which was both sparked by food hoarding or unjust rent increases.

The crown responded with force, as royal soldiers restored order and magistrates punished the ringleaders without examining the causes.

Local parlements such as the Parlement of Paris operated as courts of appeal, and they mostly upheld landowner rights and dismissed rural grievances.

Despite these struggles, most peasants generally continued to hope for better harvests rather than political reform.

Tradition and family duty held them in place, reinforced by fear of punishment, which kept them within a system that exploited their labour without offering advancement.

Some fled to towns such as Lyon or Paris in search of wage work or domestic service, but most largely stayed in their villages, where they repeated the same tasks year after year.

What they produced sustained the kingdom, as without their work the cities would likely have gone hungry and the royal court would have collapsed.

Yet the Ancien Régime treated them as a source of revenue rather than as subjects with needs or rights.

Although relatively few voices from the peasant class had survived in written records, the physical evidence of their lives, which included ruined cottages, tithe barns, millstones, and tax rolls, showed a world where hardship formed much of their identity.

Many spoke only local dialects such as Breton or Occitan and often lacked access to formal education, and as a result, literacy remained relatively rare, especially among rural women.

Their story, which was largely silent and often forgotten, formed the foundation of eighteenth-century France and carried the weight of a society that denied them the comfort of security or recognition.