In his scholarly treatise, The History of Suicide: Voluntary Death in Western Culture, Georges Minois observes that during the 18th century “suicide continued to occur where it always had, in huts and shops, and always for the same simple reason: suffering.” 2
The cause of suffering was often poverty, as with the Richard Smiths of London. Typical also were the well-recorded suicides among the common people of Brittany. Three examples shall suffice. On February 13, 1720, Marquet, a 35-year-old peddler, “whose business was lagging,” stabbed himself several times with a knife, then threw himself into the Loire River at Nantes. On February 20, 1742, a peasant hanged himself at Kervignec. All his belongings had been seized the day before because of debt, leaving him penniless. On November 29, 1769, Françoise Royer, 15, drowned herself at Fourgères. For some time she had been abused, starved, and sent out to beg by her mother. The night Françoise killed herself, her mother had beaten her, called her a whore, and threw her out into the street.2