Louis, Duke of Brittany

What people wore

Sunday Best for Working Women

Working-class women often kept a single outfit, similar to modern Sunday best, specifically for holidays and special public events.

Getting around

Travel times between major French cities

Traveling between cities often involved water coaches (coches d'eau) for rivers or road carriages, with a journey from Lyon to Paris taking six days at a slow pace or three days at a faster pace in 1742.

At the table

Famine food made of fern

During the 1709 famine, bread became so expensive that people made desperate loaves out of fern, which turned their skin yellow and left them too weak to stand.

Music

Teaching Dance via Written Notation

Dance masters used specialized choreographic notation created by Raoul Auger Feuillet to distribute and teach new dance steps between Paris and the provinces. By 1721, collections contained dozens of dances composed by masters like Pécour and Balon for the French court.

Daily life

Intense use of single-room dwellings

Ordinary homes often consisted of a single room used for all daily activities, including cooking, sleeping, and childcare, with furniture rearranged throughout the day. In rural areas, houses were typically made of wattle and daub with thatched roofs, often lacking glass windows and floorboards.

What it cost

Worker wages in the early 1700s

In the early 18th century, a rural manual worker earned about 9 sols per day, but could only find work for about 180 days out of the year.