One overwhelming fact was obvious to all contemporary observers at the end of the ancien régime: in this large and fundamentally rural kingdom of France, the economic weight of agriculture could not be ignored. “All the authors of the period, Utopists, exiled Huguenots, Economists (…) valued the cultivation of land” and, for Vauban and Boisguibert especially, “agricultural activity has a primacy that is both historical (in the development of humanity) and logical (in the causal explanation of the productive process)”, notes Jean-Claude Perrot [1]. A third reason can be added: land’s symbolic value, since the acquisition of land was the key to gaining titles of nobility for the bourgeoisie of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

It is therefore appropriate to relate ideas on population to the thinking about agriculture. Physiocracy — the “rule of nature” — presents a twofold originality in relation to the other intellectual currents of the period. It holds agriculture to be the exclusive source of wealth, and on this conviction it bases the first theoretical account of the relations between the rural economy and population. Following Adam Smith, who believed that no one had come closer to the truth in the field of political economy than the Physiocrats, they are generally acknowledged as the first to have developed a coherent economic theory. They achieved a major theoretical advance by creating a model of demo-economic growth based on the income of landed capital — they called it “the net product” — which inspired Marx to develop the concept of surplus value [2]. For the Physiocrats, agricultural production regulates population; more specifically, the number of men, their geographical distribution, and their living conditions, are determined by the land rent. Classical political economy (in the work of Smith and later of Malthus and Ricardo) took up this idea, but extended it to all sectors of economic activity. The level of production regulates the size of the population, and the adjustment takes place in the labour market through the wage rate.

The “Physiocratic movement” developed under its leader, François Quesnay (1694-1774) [3]. He had few disciples. Marquis Victor Riqueti de Mirabeau (1715-1789), father of the famous revolutionary, publishes L’Ami des hommes ou Traité de la population, which will be widely distributed and read, in 1756. Less well known are Pierre Mercier de La Rivière (1720-1793), Guillaume-François Le Trosne (1728-1780), the Abbé Nicolas Baudeau (1730-1792), and Pierre-Samuel Dupont de Nemours (1739-1817). Their loyalty to the master’s thought, or rather their rigid orthodoxy, means that the essence of Physiocratic thought is in fact contained in the writings of Quesnay, particularly the articles published in the Encyclopédie [4].

For the diffusion of their doctrines, the Physiocrats rely on several periodicals, and in particular the Ephémérides du citoyen published between 1765 and 1772. They make followers among rulers in Europe and beyond — the Grand Duke of Tuscany, the Margrave of Baden, Catherine IIof Russia who invites Mercier de La Rivière, Joseph II, and Jefferson with whom Dupont de Nemours corresponds regularly [5]. Their theories are put into practice at a political level. Free trade in grain, nationally and even internationally, is instituted between 1763 and 1770 by the reforms of comptroller general of finance Bertin and his successor L’Averdy, and then under the ministry of Turgot (edict of 13 September 1774). The Physiocrats thus witness the triumph of their ideas. But this success will prove short-lived: seven years of free trade between 1763 and 1770, and two years under Turgot between 1774 and 1776. With Turgot’s fall in 1776, France returns to the old protectionist legislation.

The fact is that the Physiocrats’ social base was extremely narrow. According to the American historian Norman J. Ware,

Talking of “class” is inaccurate here. Within a largely static and stagnant agricultural sector, Physiocratic ideas won over a number of producers, noblemen or wealthy farmers, who were keen on efficiency, open to technical innovations and equipped with a capitalist mentality for managing their land. This simplified representation of French society of the period also fails to allow for the power of corporatist interests. These were so strong that the demand of merchants and manufacturers for free trade was transformed into outright hostility as soon as their own activities needed protection [7].

The detailed survey of groups favourable or hostile to the Physiocrats drawn up by Weulersse (1910) appears closer to reality. They are supported by some Agricultural Societies of which they are also members (Paris, Orléans, Soissons, Rennes and Limoges), by Academies (Caen), by five of the Parlements (Toulouse, Aix, Grenoble, Rouen, Rennes) though only the first three will remain loyal to free trade in grain when its implementation produces increasing opposition. Some newspapers are well disposed toward them, and the Physiocrats recruit a number of supporters among young noblemen in certain salons. Relations with the Encyclopedists were initially good though they deteriorated progressively through the years. Their opponents are the corporate bodies protected by various monopolies, and the traders, merchants and manufacturers who do not understand that industry must be sacrificed to agriculture. Predictably, they meet with the suspicion or open hostility of all who benefit from the numerous duties and taxes and of those who, in the name of the King, are responsible for collecting them (farmers-general and fiscal agents in general). The intendants généraux [8] and the police authorities are also opposed, because they fear the disorders that measures relating to a product like bread could cause, as will indeed be the case [9].

Two apparently separate questions need to be answered. At the theoretical level, why is population a variable dependent on agricultural production? And why was the Physiocratic movement a political and doctrinal failure? Our view is that these two questions are in fact inextricably linked and must be answered together, precisely because Physiocratic doctrine, whether political or economic, is based on a theoretical construct of which the demographic component is merely an expression. In other words, our analysis will constantly take place upstream from the ideas on population. The importance given to agriculture, which the Physiocrats consider the sole generator of wealth (I) is the key to understanding their theory of population (II). The historical causes of their failure (III) are economic and political in nature: they too must be analysed in terms of both theory and doctrine.

A second explanation, not incompatible with the first, refers back to the quotation from Norman Ware. The Physiocrats elaborated their doctrine in almost natural opposition to the mercantilists. But as the Physiocrats observe the industrial and commercial wealth of England and Holland, they have to recognize that two other models of economic development are possible: international trade and industrialization. Quesnay, who argues for an efficient and highly productive agriculture, therefore has to prove that the two other sectors do not constitute satisfactory alternatives for ensuring the prosperity of the kingdom. At several points, he mentions the example of trading nations. Commerce has indeed been a source of prosperity for Holland, Hamburg, Genoa, but it is important to ensure that the nation exports essential goods first and foremost (Quesnay is in fact thinking of grain). The political argument recurs again and again: that the nation can do this proves that its independence is guaranteed. Similarly, when despotism ruins agriculture, only trade is possible, because wealth can be concealed or transported. Such is the fate of the Barbary Coast and of Turkey. In any case, commerce is an inadequate basis for the prosperity of a great nation [13].

As for industry, Quesnay contrasts two alternative models to prove that it is a less beneficial source of prosperity for the nation than agriculture. If labour is employed in industry, its will be at the expense of agricultural production, and because industry is “sterile” national income will be much lower. If on the contrary agriculture is prosperous, the country can cumulate several sources of wealth. In addition to exporting its agricultural surplus, it can even benefit from an immigration of manufacturers and craftsmen, which will stimulate demand for agricultural products on the national market and allow it to increase the export of manufactured products. In fact, Quesnay puts forward a macro-economic model of development based on agriculture and strengthens his case by using political arguments, as illustrated by his insistent refutation of international trade. By taking labour away from agriculture, international trade harms the country’s population and wealth and hence its political strength. This is the exact opposite of the mercantilist standpoint [14].

An important reasoning follows from the analysis of the conditions of production. Quesnay insists that it is not arms that are in short supply, as “city dwellers naively believe”, but capital, an opinion widely shared by his contemporaries. Mirabeau, for his part, suggests “pouring back” foundlings into the countryside to increase labour and improve the network of roads. Competition between the labour needs of the countryside and of the cities will increase in the nineteenth century, with a constantly growing rural exodus against a background of declining birth rate. But this is not the context in which Quesnay is writing. He is primarily concerned with making agriculture the motor of economic growth. His entire argument centres on two players, the wealthy farmer and the proprietor, who incarnate economic rationality. Their individual activity has positive consequences at the macro-economic level, as is logical in a system where collective interest is the sum of individual interests. But it also has political advantages which, as is often the case with Quesnay, are inseparable. By creating rural employment, farmers help to sustain the rural population and, in the final analysis, the power of the state:

Let us conclude for the time being with three epistemological observations concerning Quesnay’s main theoretical contribution, the Tableau économique and the concept of net product. The idea of circulation and flow can be linked first to the state of knowledge in the eighteenth century. Just as the natural social order echoed the Newtonian physical order, so Harvey’s discovery of the circulation of blood, which revolutionized the understanding of the human body in the previous century, undoubtedly gave Quesnay, a trained surgeon, the idea for the circulation of wealth depicted in the Tableau économique. But it would be wrong to see this as evidence of a close relationship between curative medicine and political economy. What is significant is not the notion of healing, but the interpretation in terms of organic functioning [19].

Joseph Schumpeter suggests a different analysis of the flow symbolism. According to him, Quesnay sees the notion of the circuit as a demonstration of the complementarity and even solidarity between the social classes, whereas Adam Smith, far more realistic, believes rather in the profound rifts that divide them, his sympathy being with the poor day la-bourers [20]. Gino Longhitano argues that in less than ten years, between the first editions of the Tableau économique in 1756-1757 and the first articles (“Fermiers”, “Grains”) published in the Encyclopédie, and those on the Natural Order of 1765-1766 and the work by Mercier de La Rivière, the Physiocrats moved from political economy to the “construction of a social philosophy”. The three classes of expenditure became the social classes (proprietor, productive, sterile). Mercier’s theoretical contribution is decisive because he shows that this new element participates in the order of nature and he bridges the gap between economic themes and natural order:

Finally, quantitative information has a twofold nature for Quesnay. On the one hand, in keeping with his contemporaries’ enthusiasm for agriculture, and like the thinkers of the agronomic school, he bases his analysis on solid empirical evidence supplied by a network of correspondents. On the other hand, the diagram of the Tableau économique contains purely theoretical numbers, which purport to illustrate the annual flows of exchanges between social groups. This is why Jean Molinier analysed the Tableau économique as a tentative exercise in national accounting [22]. If Quesnay did not use the real numbers which were available, it was because his main concern was to demonstrate dynamics rather than to portray reality. Philippe Steiner is therefore correct to see a contrast between medicine and the new science of political economy that Quesnay wants to establish. But he is wrong to write that if for the former clinical experience is indispensable, for the latter “objective data” have to be integrated in a theoretical operation which alone gives them meaning, for arbitrary numbers cannot provide the basis for inductive reasoning. One point, however, is common to both disciplines: for Quesnay, knowledge originates in the senses, but by the exercise of reason it is possible to avoid the traps of sensualism [23].

The ideas on population lead to a similar conclusion: they refer to an analysis in terms of classes and social behaviour (for example, luxury). The political implications of economic choices are ever present (taxation, the army); finally and above all, even if Quesnay is aware, for example, of the concrete problems of labour in agriculture, the effort to think in terms of theory is undeniable.

The main features of Malthusian demo-economic analysis and of classical analysis in general are sketched out here. In the introduction we recalled that demand for labour (agricultural production for the Physiocrats) regulates supply (which for them, as for the classical economists, is population). Let us have another look at this mechanism that will be formalized by the classical economists. When economic conditions are favourable, employers seek to employ more labour to satisfy the demand for produce. Because the demand for labour (production) faces a population whose size is fixed in the short term, the law of supply and demand on the labour market will cause wages to rise. Workers are encouraged to marry earlier, and if they are married, to increase their fertility in order to benefit from the extra wages their children can earn. This is true for the rural world but also for industry, since in the early stages of capitalism — the theories of Smith, Malthus and Ricardo are based on their firsthand observation — children are put to work very early. Population thus increases in response to production. Conversely, if the economic situation deteriorates, the demand for labour decreases and population growth is checked (thanks to a rise in age at marriage and resort to contraception within marriage). Mortality may even strike the social groups that are at the margin of subsistence.

Quesnay’s theoretical contribution is less sophisticated but the essential features are present. Population growth, he writes, “depends entirely on the increase of wealth, on the employment of men and the use of wealth…” The same applies to one of the modes of demographic growth, immigration (or emigration), which depends on the course of economic activity and on the degree of “religious tolerance” of the state. Like many of his contemporaries and in particular Voltaire, Quesnay has in mind the exodus of the Protestants. On the other hand, he does not develop as precise an analysis as Cantillon, for whom nuptiality and fertility are responding to the increase of wealth initiated by the “proprietors of land” [28].

But if Quesnay, like the classical economists, considers from a dynamic point of view that production governs population through the demand for labour, the empirical evidence about the working of French agriculture leads him to a concern, at a purely static level, for the outlets of production. According to him, the population was large enough in relation to the size and fertility of the territory, lest internal demand be insufficient to absorb agricultural production [29]. Considerations of this kind have fostered uncertainty about Quesnay’s ideas on population and given the impression that he is at times populationist.

The cultivation of vineyards provides an opportunity to develop an analysis of intersectorial relations (between agriculture and trade in this case) and an approach to the optimum allocation, this time within agriculture, of two of the three factors of production, labour and land. He sees vineyards as especially worthy of attention because they allow the maximization of population and net product — today we would refer to the demographic growth induced by employment and the distribution of income. It requires an abundant labour force and consequently, “population will increase in proportion to the increase in annual wealth resulting from the increase in the cultivation of vineyards”. In addition, “the most wealthy branch of cultivation in the French kingdom” offers the advantage of earning revenue through exports. Pursuing the theme of the optimum use of land as a factor of production, Quesnay extends his reflection to the entire agricultural sector and advocates the use of less fertile land for other uses (pasture, mulberry trees, minor cereals, etc.), which would strengthen livestock farming, improve human diet, and thus increase the population [30].

The theory of the wage also follows from that of the net product. Both move in the same direction. The argument runs thus. When the net product is high, landed proprietors can distribute higher nominal wages provided they do not hoard but reinvest their profits, which Quesnay believes they will because their behaviour is rational [31]. It should be noted that if the net product were not reinvested it would turn into a sterile “nest egg” which would slow down economic growth. In this Quesnay anticipates the analysis of effective demand made by Malthus in his Principles of Political Economy and more especially, as Schumpeter notes, that by Keynes [32]. Let us assume that the net product is indeed reintroduced into the circuit. Then, even if the price of wheat increases, real wages will increase anyway, because the consumption of food products does not absorb the entire wage [33]. The very concrete nature of the argument in favour of agriculture thus makes a theoretical advance possible thanks to a more detailed analysis of the demand for labour: the nature and sectorial distribution of the demand for labour are as important as its total volume.

Another ground for the criticism of luxury is hostility to the lifestyle imposed by the Court. Louis XIV had been deeply marked by the Fronde, and his political objectives are known to have included forcing the aristocracy to dissipate itself through lavish spending of its revenue at the Court. The allusion is barely concealed:

But this severe and moralizing description should not mislead. Quesnay was less concerned about the political stakes than about the economic implications of luxury. A few lines later the argument focuses on the problem of wealth creation and he deplores the “concentration of men in the manufactories of luxury to the detriment of agriculture” [36].

Thus we are brought back to agriculture and to the indirect demographic implications of luxury, through an analysis of the distribution of the work force. Men are wrongly directed into sterile sectors that are often hostile to free trade and protectionist in the tradition of Colbert, and this leads to a shortage of arms in agriculture and, as a consequence, to the impoverishment of the kingdom. And as the demand for labour is insufficient, demographic growth is depressed:

From this demo-economic perspective, it is understandable that Quesnay’s hostility to luxury turns to approval when “luxe de subsistance” (luxury of subsistence) is involved, that is, a qualitative improvement in food consumption. In contrast to the “luxe de décoration” (decorative luxury), the latter raises the net product of agriculture. On this point, Quesnay differs from Cantillon who is more favourable to the products of luxury manufactories because he is not defending the same interests [37].

Since free trade in grain guarantees them a “good price”, proprietors are willing to increase production by reducing fallows, renewing tenancies, making larger advances, notes Dupont de Nemours about the progress of agriculture in Provence, Brittany, and the Orléans region, which has been achieved, according to him, since the establishment of free trade in grain in 1763. The increase in net product thus enables proprietors to pay higher wages to the “lower orders”. Mercier de La Rivière even sees this as the only justification for foreign trade:

To continue the analysis: the good price has two mutually reinforcing advantages. Higher wages obviously produce a rise in living standards for the wage earners because the additional revenue is not absorbed by the increase in the price of subsistence (today we would say that inflation does not cancel out the increase in nominal wages). At the macro-economic level, the revenues that are paid out reinforce consumption, in turn inducing an increase in production and, at the end of the process, economic growth for the nation. The model was forcefully summarized in 1767:

Nor is there any reason to fear the export of grain. It is justified theoretically by two separate but converging arguments. It earns revenues that stimulate consumption, and the resulting demand for labour induces demographic growth. In addition, since manufactured goods incorporate only labour and not wealth, it is better to export grain. The net product thus provides the decisive theoretical argument in favour of free trade in grain. It remains to justify the export policy. Quesnay, who knows that France has an exportable surplus, hammers out four arguments: exports do not create a risk of famine; they can always be balanced by imports; the production of grain in America is not to be feared given the higher quality of grain produced in France; and, above all, foreign sales “support the price of foodstuffs”, for they prevent a fall in market prices and consequently allow the net product to be maximized. The export of grain has another dimension for the Physiocrats. A capacity to export is proof of true political independence because exports imply self-sufficiency in food, as we would say today. Clearly advocated here is a commercial policy radically opposed to that of Colbert, which consisted in protecting national industries against imports. This can be seen in a text of 1766, “Remarques sur l’opinion de l’auteur de l’Esprit des lois concernant les colonies”, where he opposes Montesquieu’s assertion contained in chapter XVII of book XXI of L’Esprit des lois, that the home country would have the exclusive right to negotiate with a colony if the latter was founded uniquely for the purposes of increasing trade. Quesnay considered that granting such a monopoly to various trading companies was to ill serve the interests of the state. His target here was the colonial compact [41].

Demographic considerations are clearly not important in themselves; they are inseparable from a crucial issue linked to efficient taxation — the wealth and hence the power of the kingdom.

The wealth of the kingdom? If Quesnay and Mercier de La Rivière want a single tax on the rent of proprietors, it is firstly for reasons of efficiency. All other forms of taxes are “redundant” and in the end fall on the proprietors. The argument is addressed to the king in his role as a great proprietor of land; it is clearly in his own interest that tax be collected on the land rent. One might add: so much the better if the kingdom’s population lives better as a result [44]. The power of the kingdom? As often with the Physiocrats, economic theory is in fact inseparable from political philosophy, and the link is particularly strong with respect to taxation. In a text of 1767, “Despotisme de la Chine”, Quesnay develops a political model, legal despotism, which Mercier de La Rivière systematized in L’ordre naturel et essentiel des sociétés politiques, published the same year. This model is organized around two fundamental points [45]. The first derives from their economic theory: because wealth is generated by land alone, tax must be levied on agriculture. The second is part of their political philosophy: because property is the foundation of the social order, the government’s duty is to defend and protect it so that society can function. The demonstration of the necessity of legal despotism involves a reflection on the nature and role of taxation. In a large kingdom, the domain lands of the sovereign are insufficient to provide adequate resources for the maintenance of order, so the king has to levy taxes. Thus these benefit from a kind of fundamental legitimacy, because they ensure the “security” of property. Since tax is necessarily collected on the revenue of property it can in fact be analysed, to use Weulersee’s expression, as a “kind of indispensable joint use by the state of the revenue from its domain”. Taking up the legal theory of the eminent domain developed over the previous two hundred years, the Physiocrats hold that since the king is historically the original owner of the soil, he may legitimately subject the proprietors of the land to a tax based on its revenue. As Mercier de La Rivière writes: “in his capacity as sovereign, he is the joint owner of the net product of the land over which he reigns” [46]. This is why, with respect to taxes, the question of wealth is inseparable from that of the kingdom’s power. But the latter also has a military dimension.

If the population does not exist to provide soldiers for the Prince, how can the defence of the kingdom be assured? The argument reflects the conditions of the period and is perfectly consistent with the economic theory of the Physiocrats. In the eighteenth century, armies are almost entirely composed of mercenaries and artillery units, even if in France the militia system also provides men. To have large numbers of soldiers, money matters far more than men. So the issue is one of financial resources required to recruit and arm the troops, as Quesnay clearly saw:

Mention must be made here of a specific historical factor. Publication of the Tableau économique in 1758 was directly linked to the disastrous Seven Years War (1756-1763) which proved a financial catastrophe due to the military operations in the colonies and the decisive role played by a costly navy. Aware of the seriousness of the financial crisis, Quesnay judges the time right to present the principles of a system intended to restore the kingdom’s strength and publishes the Tableau économique on which he has been working for a year [48]. This context gives added significance to the fact that the king appears in the Tableau économique in the second class, that of proprietors. As a proprietor he has little interest in losing on the battlefield the only population that ensures the production of his wealth [49].

The question remains, however, of where to find the men who will ensure the defence of the kingdom? The answer follows logically from the theory of production: in the sterile classes. If this is the case, wealth and military power are perfectly compatible because the king can pay his troops with the net product:

In the article “Impôts”, Quesnay explicitly links political and economic arguments. In the end, the number of men is not at all decisive for the power of the state. Here we see a complete break from mercantilism: the number of subjects is not in itself a factor of power for the Prince [50].

Probably more damaging to their chances of exercising greater influence were the industrialization and flourishing commercial activity of England which was an ever-present demonstration of the accuracy of the analyses of the Wealth of Nations and the classical school. Contemporaries could see clearly that industry was not at all sterile and that it did create value; and it was obvious that trade generated the capital necessary for England’s industrialization, thus weakening the Physiocratic arguments on two fronts [54]. It is worth pausing to consider the English context in the middle of the eighteenth century and evoke the state of mind of contemporaries. Between 1700 and 1780, foreign trade has doubled and the colonies overtake Europe in mercantile exchanges, in particular thanks to the slave trade [55]. Daniel Defoe, author of Robinson Crusoe, could thus write in 1726 that “trade in England neither is or ought to be levelled with what it is in other countries; or the tradesmen depreciated as they are abroad”; as for the Duke of Newcastle, he affirmed that he had been “bred up in to think that the trade of this nation is the sole support of it” and that he had always attempted “to contribute all that was in my power to the encouragement and extension of the trade and commerce of these kingdoms” [56]. In France itself, the prosperity of Nantes, Bordeaux and Saint Malo was striking. Between 1716 and 1788, imports from the American Islands rose from 16.7 to 185 million livres and exports from 9 to 78 million. And in the kingdom as a whole, while European trade quadruples, colonial trade grows tenfold [57]. Much larger profits could therefore be made from the colonies and from international trade, a point that was well understood by neo-mercantilists like Melon and Véron de Forbonnais, but also by the monarchy and its agents, and among them men like Graslin, general collector of taxes in Nantes. It is understandable that Quesnay should attempt to refute the argument. While he is completely lucid about England’s prosperity (“the slave trade, which is the principal object of this nation’s trade”), he can merely affirm but not actually prove that the revenue derived from this sector is appreciably lower than that from livestock and from the grain trade. On the other hand, chapter 7 of Philosophie rurale, published in 1763 from the pen of Quesnay, contains a mass of quantitative information about England’s agriculture and about the circulation of wealth, on the lines of the Tableau économique. But it does not make the comparison with profits from colonial trade. Quesnay applies a similar reasoning to France:

And yet, the relationship of the Physiocrats with political power is, to say the least, complex. Quesnay, who as physician to Madame de Pompadour has the favour of the court, does not publish the article “Hommes” at the time when the question of censorship is raised about the Encyclopédie. And using the same technique as Montesquieu in the Lettres persanes, he uses China as a stand-in for France. According to Fox-Genovese, this accounts for the identification with Confucius and the reference to the sage. But although social and political positions are veiled, the economic criticism is fierce and specific: the articles “Grains” and “Hommes” draw a sharp contrast between Colbert and Sully. The first is openly criticized, the second praised at length [59].

The theory of the net product led logically to an economic policy: modernize agriculture to make the state stronger, by favouring the liberalization of internal and international trade in what would be described today as a politically sensitive product, namely grain. The political context supplies the key to understanding why it was impossible to achieve free trade in grain in the last three decades of the ancien régime [60]. Between 1760 and 1775, the question was inseparable from many other crucial issues, including political arbitrariness, fiscal inequality, the financial crisis and the debts of the monarchy. A confusion of issues was to be expected. Hostility to this form of commercial liberalism was based on fear of hunger, and famine was in fact only one dysfunction among others. Although the opposition was deeply divided and as yet had no coherent political agenda, this gave it a political weapon with which to weaken the monarchy. The Physiocrats underestimated their opponents, being too concerned with establishing a new orthodoxy against a Colbertian mercantilism that remained influential, and even more absorbed by demonstrating the sterility of all non-agricultural activities. They were in fact hostages to the conflict, sometimes hidden, sometimes open, of the Parlements against the crown, although they had originally had the support of five of them.

It is useful to recall the stages of implementation of the free trade in grain [61]. Act one. Under the influence of Gournay, who died in 1759, and of Quesnay, comptroller general of finance Henri Bertin authorizes on 27 May 1763 the free circulation of “grain, flour, and vegetables throughout the kingdom”, while buying and selling operations are rendered practically free [62]. A royal edict of 19 July 1764 removes all obstacles to the trade in grain and flour except in Paris and its hinterland. Exports and imports are also partially authorized. The preamble to the edict, written partly by Dupont de Nemours who at that time was working with Turgot, is a pure declaration of Physiocratic principles [63]. In May 1763 the Parlement of Paris reluctantly registers the royal proclamation: “if experience proves the disadvantages of this new legislation, we will return to the former laws”. This pointed to the general state of opinion. Since consumers no longer felt protected by price controls on bread, they saw it as a factor of price increase [64]. There was even talk of a “famine pact”, of speculations in which the king himself was believed to be involved. The Parlements blocked the application of the measures freeing trade and attacked their architects, the Physiocrats, and particularly Baudeau. In 1767, a bad harvest intensified the attacks against the Physiocrats, who were accused of wanting to starve the people, and Véron de Forbonnais published a rebuttal of Quesnay’s Tableau économique. Between 1765 and 1768, three of the Physiocrats, Le Trosne, Mercier de La Rivière and Baudeau, published works defending the group’s views, for the hostility of the Parlements was strong. The Parlement of Paris accused the Physiocrats of wanting to deprive the people of bread; Rouen re-established controls on the trade in grain on 15 April 1769, and Paris and Dijon followed suit in the summer of 1770. The account by Dupont de Nemours gives a measure of the situation [65]. L’Averdy, who succeeded Bertin as comptroller general and who was responsible for the edict of 19 July 1764, is dismissed at the end of 1768. After bad harvests in 1769 and 1770, the price of wheat remains high. The regulation of 1764 is finally abolished on 23 December 1770. Only Turgot, the intendant of Limousin, maintains freedom of grain in his province.

Act two. Right after coming to power on 24 August 1774, Turgot initiates a programme of reforms, and considers others of astonishing boldness: reduction of Court expenditure and ministerial salaries, suppression of some aristocratic privileges and unnecessary offices, abolition of the corvées, and naturally, re-establishment of free trade in grain. Over a period of two short years (he was dismissed on 13 May 1776) he will again run up against a coalition of interests. The edict of 13 September 1774, complemented by other measures in the same year, guaranteed complete free trade in grain. But bad harvests in 1774 and 1775 trigger a “guerre des farines” (“flour war”). Rumours again begin to circulate that hoarders are withholding grain to force up prices; riots break out during April in Reims and Dijon, and also in Picardy, Brie, and Beauce. On 2 May 1775, some people assemble in front of the gates of the Versailles palace; on the next day, demonstrators take to the streets in Paris, and two days later the Parlement of Paris requests the king to take the necessary steps to bring down the price of bread. The crown employs a mixture of repression and pardon, and the crisis subsides. But in early 1776 it has to face opposition from the corporations, hostile to any form of competition, and from the Parlement which in March remonstrates the king on the question of the suppression of the corvée and of various privileges, denouncing, in the name of the social order on which the monarchy is based, the dangers of equality in the face of taxation. Finally, Turgot is dismissed on 13 May 1776. Such were the turmoils in which the Physiocrats were caught.

Furthermore, Fox-Genovese is correct to stress that advocating free trade in grain to a government that traditionally held stocks was tantamount to forgetting that the King, father of the nation, had an obligation to be concerned about his subjects’ subsistence needs and that behind this moral duty lay a political calculation: hunger is a cause of social instability [68]. The Physiocrats are limited in their support to a minority of innovative agriculturists, since outside of certain circles most of French agriculture in the eighteenth century remains largely static [69]. With such a narrow social base they depend on the good will of the monarch for getting their ideas accepted, while he is torn between opposing interest groups. But because they also criticize the taxes and the privileges granted by the crown, they cannot count on its unconditional support. In fact, in the name of a truth based on the economic science they had discovered, they want nothing less than to force the King, despite his own stakes as a great landowner, to abandon any room to manœuvre and adopt the Physiocratic solution. It is a denial of politics in the name of technocratic knowledge.

Let us return briefly to their political model, legal despotism, and to its political implications. It is based, as we know, on an analysis of property: property and sovereignty are inseparable in the person of the King who is — and this is a crucial point for their demonstration — the largest landowner in the kingdom. Hence his legitimacy is no longer solely by divine right; it has an economic or rather a landed origin. The King is therefore a despot in the literal sense of the term, that is to say, he is “master and owner by patrimonial entitlement” of the soil. But he is a legal despot who must above all respect the law. He is thus radically different from the “personal” or “arbitrary” despot who uses force to oppress. His role is to defend property and natural laws, and through these the natural order, against anything that threatens them: the selfishness of monopoly holders, the insubordination of the lower administration, the riots provoked by the high price of grain.

In the face of these dangers, the tutelary authority must be “unique and impartial” [70]. Hence their natural preference for hereditary monarchy, which combines economic and political legitimacy. They believe it is much more effective than the separation of powers advocated by Montesquieu, which rests upon too delicate a balance, or than aristocratic government, which can “by confederation form a power above the law” [71]. As for democracy, where legislative power lays with the nation, it has two drawbacks. Its very principle, the political representation of the nation, is at odds with the necessary economic inequality of property. The voting of laws intended to protect this inequality cannot be entrusted to an assembly elected according to the principle of equality between citizens. Most serious, however, “the ignorance and prejudice that predominate in the lower orders, and the uncontrolled passions and moments of fury they fall prey to, expose the state to disorder, revolt and appalling disasters” [72].

The consequences of such a position in the closing stages of the ancien régime are not hard to imagine. The Physiocrats were close to the Encyclopedists in requesting a minimum role for the state at the economic level — limited to guaranteeing freedom of grain— but they differed from them by wanting to do this under a régime of legal despotism. Advocating an authoritarian intervention of the political power to ensure economic liberty was, to say the least, contradictory. Thus, the model of legal despotism could only raise the hackles of the Encyclopedists, and it earned the Physiocrats the hostility of Galiani, Diderot, Rousseau, Mably and Grimm. It contributed to their isolation and hastened their failure [73].

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Overall, it is indeed the interaction between politics and economics that explains the failure of the Physiocrats. Although their theory was based on good quality empirical observations, the model they developed had little chance of convincing their contemporaries at the doctrinal level, and especially not in the political context of the late ancien régime. This has important methodological implications for the study of ideas on population. That these ideas were a marginal concern to the Physiocrats, for whom the essential issue was free trade in grain and the development of agriculture, matters little. In the very century when demography acquired a theoretical formulation, they cannot be analysed independently of the political reality, as we have argued [74]. Our discussion has drawn on various disciplines and has been conducted at several analytical levels, but the last word belongs to history. The “long” history of economic structures and ideas made possible the theoretical and doctrinal genesis of Physiocracy, centred on agriculture and as a consequence on population, whereas the “short” history of the economic and political events brought about its failure. But Physiocracy’s fundamental theoretical contribution — that population was economically determined — was to have a lasting success.