During the French Revolution, most of the country did not speak French.

Maximilien Robespierre

In the early years of the French Revolution, a revolutionary named Henri Grégoire conducted a survey of language throughout the fledgling republic and discovered a concerning truth: Most people living in France at the time didn’t actually speak French. On June 4, 1794, Grégoire reported the results of his survey to the revolutionary assembly, stating that there were no more than 3 million French speakers (11% of the population), and even fewer who were able to write it. In fact, the language was spoken more in the Netherlands and German states than it was in some parts of France.

Instead, a majority of French people spoke local dialects — for instance, a large southern population spoke Occitan, a Romance language influenced by Latin. This was seen as particularly embarrassing for the revolutionary cause, as three years earlier, diplomat Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand declared that “the multitude of corrupt dialects, the last remnants of feudalism, will be forced to disappear: necessity dictates so.” Grégoire’s survey only added fuel to the fire. Little more than a month after the survey, the revolutionary administration declared that “no public act may be written (or registered) other than in the French language, in any part of the territory of the Republic.” Luckily, France’s linguistic multiculturalism survived the prescriptive onslaught, and regional languages such as Occitan and Basque flourish to this day.

By the Numbers

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Bread played a major role in igniting the French Revolution.

While the cause of the French Revolution is complex and multifaceted, one of the major grievances against the French crown was the availability of bread. To put it mildly, bread was a staple of the daily diet of a typical 18th-century French citizen. In fact, bread was so central to French society that the king became known as “le premier boulanger du royaume,” or “the first baker of the kingdom.” It’s estimated that 60% to 80% of a typical wage-earner's family budget went to buying bread alone. Yet as France’s population increased throughout the 18th century, the monarchy implemented disastrous regulatory policies while neglecting to increase domestic production of bread. Then, disaster struck when a severe winter in 1788 delivered low crop yields, sending the price of bread soaring. With most of the French population living without sufficient access to bread, anger fomented in rebellion. On July 14, 1789, a band of Parisians stormed the Bastille in search of arms and also grain for making bread, marking the start of the French Revolution.