A 21 minute audio essay that looks at the year 1783 when France gains a new Finance Minister who says (despite massive debt): spend, spend, spend! And hundreds of miles away Laki erupts on Iceland to send the weather into a tailspin and cause France to enter years of hunger and severe weather.

http://www.republicandempire.com/the-french-revolution.html

'France believes that she is feted around the world. She has won a long and difficult war and the laurels sit proud upon her head. She should be conspicuous in her wealth'.