The Great Fear, known in French as La Grande Peur, was a period of intense, widespread panic and spontaneous rural unrest that swept across large parts of the French countryside during the initial stages of the French Revolution. This massive social upheaval represented a sudden eruption of long-simmering tensions among the peasantry who had endured years of economic hardship. It demonstrated the profound instability of the social order once the authority of the Bourbon monarchy began to collapse. The phenomenon was not a planned movement but rather a collection of localized explosions of anxiety and violence that profoundly shaped the direction of the revolution.
Pinpointing the Start: Mid-July 1789
Determining the exact moment the Great Fear began is complicated because it was not a centralized event but rather a series of localized outbreaks across multiple provinces. The wave of panic began immediately following the dramatic events in Paris, specifically the fall of the Bastille prison on July 14, 1789. This action signaled the sudden collapse of royal executive power, creating a political vacuum that amplified rural anxieties and removed the traditional mechanism for maintaining order.
The most intense and widespread phase of the Great Fear is generally pinpointed to have begun around July 20, 1789, spreading rapidly from various points across the French provinces. The breakdown of centralized law enforcement meant that rumors, rather than official news, dictated the actions of the populace. This period marks the transition from an urban political revolt to a broad-based rural social revolution that aimed to dismantle the traditional landholding system.
Underlying Conditions Fueling the Fear
The eruption of the Great Fear in mid-July was not merely an overreaction to rumors; it was the result of severe, long-term societal pressures that left the rural population vulnerable to mass hysteria. A series of poor grain harvests in the years leading up to 1789 had created severe scarcity of grain, driving the price of bread to unsustainable heights for the average worker. This economic distress meant that subsistence was already precarious, and any perceived threat to the remaining crops or supplies was seen as an existential danger.
Deeply entrenched resentment toward the seigneurial system also provided fertile ground for the panic to take hold across the provinces. Peasants were obligated to pay various feudal dues and taxes to local nobles, even if they owned or worked the land. These financial burdens, including the champart, which was a share of the harvest, and the corvée, which required unpaid labor, were viewed as unjust remnants of medieval oppression.
The political turmoil of 1789 offered the first opportunity for the peasantry to challenge these deeply rooted economic and social structures. The removal of the traditional mechanism of maintaining order allowed pent-up frustration over centuries of social inequality to explode across the countryside. This widespread hardship explains why the panic was so destructive toward the existing order.
The Geographic Spread and Duration
The panic spread across the French provinces through an accelerated chain reaction, often described as a series of distinct, yet interconnected, waves radiating from initial points of unrest. The mechanism for this rapid geographic spread was the pervasive and unsubstantiated rumor that “brigands” were sweeping the countryside to destroy crops and punish the Third Estate. These supposed bands of armed vagrants were often believed to be hired by vengeful aristocrats seeking to sabotage the revolution and starve the population.
As the rumors traveled via messengers and word-of-mouth, local villages responded by forming militias for self-defense. When the expected brigands failed to appear, the newly armed peasants redirected their attention toward the symbols of their long-standing oppression. They specifically targeted local chateaux and manor houses associated with the collection of feudal dues.
The actions taken by the peasantry were highly specific: they systematically demanded and then burned the terriers, which were the registers listing all feudal obligations, taxes, and rents owed to the local lord. The destruction of these documents was an attempt to legally erase the economic foundations of the old feudal system, effectively ending the financial relationship between the noble landowner and the peasant.
Immediate Political Consequences
The widespread rural chaos forced the National Assembly, which had been focused primarily on drafting a constitution in Paris, to act. The legislators recognized that the revolution could not proceed while the countryside remained in a state of anarchy, with property rights being challenged. The Assembly had to address the grievances of the peasantry to restore order and safeguard the gains of the urban revolution.
The direct political response to the Great Fear culminated in the passage of the August Decrees between August 4 and August 11, 1789. This legislative session saw members of the nobility and clergy renounce their centuries-old privileges. The initial decree declared the complete abolition of the feudal system in France.
The subsequent decrees formalized this abolition, specifically ending serfdom, the exclusive hunting rights of the nobility, and the requirement of the corvée. While some financial obligations were initially deemed redeemable rather than outright abolished, the August Decrees effectively dismantled the legal and economic structure that had sustained the Great Fear. This government action brought the most intense phase of the rural panic to a definitive close by removing its structural causes and satisfying the peasantry’s primary demands.