Les crises démographiques en France aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles

Demographic crises in XVIIth and XVIIIth centuries France. The repetition of crises is one of the most distinctive features of French demography in the XVIIth and XVIIIth centuries. They had an effect not only on mortality, but also on marriage rates and conceptions. They originated from the threefold scourge of disease, starvation and war. The plague, until its disappearance in the 1660's (apart from the Marseille outbreak of 1720), dysentery, typhus, small pox, etc., suddenly broke out from time to time. Food shortage and consistent high prices generated subsistence crises which affected on demography. Last, civil and foreign war, at least up to 1660, also generated such crises. However, most of the demographic crises of the XVIIth and XVIIIth centuries resulted from epidemics, of which the most serious were caused by both food shortage and disease. Beyond their origins and their (provisional) timetable, their effects on mortality, marriage rate and conceptions should also be surveyed.Lebrun François. Les crises démographiques en France aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles. In: Annales. Économies, Sociétés, Civilisations. 35ᵉ année, N. 2, 1980. pp. 205-234