Bakers' queues

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Bakers' queues are long line-ups at shops when essential goods are short. The phrase is quite rarely used, and it is generally only seen in references to Thomas Carlyle's book The French Revolution, A History. Carlyle uses the phrase at once to condemn the revolutionaries for their failure to meet basic public needs, and as synonym for the angry French public after the French revolution started to sour.

According to the Nuttall Encyclopedia, Bakers' queues are "long strings of purchasers arranged in tail at the bakers' shop doors in Paris during the Revolution period, so that first come be first served, were the shops once open," and that came to be a Parisian institution.

[edit] Reference

• The French Revolution - A History, Thomas Carlyle ISBN 0-7661-8764-0 (also Project Gutenberg etext 1301)

This article incorporates text from the public domain 1907 edition of The Nuttall Encyclopædia.