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An abiding mystery of the French Revolution is solved — by epidemiology

The period of panic and unrest called the Great Fear was triggered by deliberately spread rumours, according to methods borrowed from pandemic playbooks.
By
  1. Mariana Lenharo

    1. Mariana Lenharo is a news reporter for Nature based in New York City.

In 1789, rumours spread like a virus across France: gangs of bandits were attacking villages, destroying crops and terrorizing peasants, mobilized by nobles trying to suppress political unrest. None of it was true. But the resulting panic and upheaval, called the Great Fear, helped to fuel the French Revolution — and provoked a debate that still divides historians.

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doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-025-02739-9

Listen to the related podcast, ‘Viral spread: how rumours surged in revolutionary France’.

References

  1. Zapperi, S., Varlet-Bertrand, C., Bastidon, C., La Porta, C. A. M. & Parent, A. Nature https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09392-2 (2025).

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