Dickens: meaning of “preserves” in “preserves of loaves and fishes”

In both countries, it was clearer than crystal to the lords of the State preserves of loaves and fishes, that things in general were settled for ever.

I could find no real (original) books that used preservers rather than preserves, so Dickens chose this word purposely.

Preserves in the OED (limited) is defined as a place that is kept for private hunting or an activity regarded as being reserved for a particular group.

There are two Biblical references here worth noting: Clear as crystal is from Revelations 21:11. During the end times, the light coming from Jerusalem will be

like unto a stone most precious, even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal.

He is setting us up here for bad times (end of times), and reinforces it with a second Biblical reference, a miracle of abundant food (to feed 5000) from little: from five loaves and two fishes, He fed all the multitiude and had much left over.

Dickens’ Dickens’ allusion to this miracle is highly ironic, as his “lords of the State preserves of loaves and fishes” are the French and English aristocrats for whom hunting is a leisure sport. The “loaves and fishes” of aristocratic game reserves were kept for entertainment, not nourishment, and the “preserves” preserve the game from distribution to the hungrier classes. In short, Dickens’ loaves and fishes are not used to feed a multitude, but to entertain an unhungry few.

So it is as you have guessed: it is the preserves kept for hunting to which Dickens was referring, making note that these were not going to be enough, unlike the loaves and fishes, to feed the hungry, and that the aristocracy were just thinking of themselves and their pleasure instead of the state of affairs their countries were in.

_{It is also worth noting that Carlyle – whose history of The French Revolution was one of Dickens’ chief historical sources – associates the first flight of the French nobles at the stirrings of Revolution with the flight of their game: “On the Cliffs of Dover, over all the Marches of France, there appear, this autumn, two signs on the Earth: emigrant flights of French Seigneurs; emigrant winged flights of French Game! Finished, one may say, or as good as finished, is the Preservation of Game on this Earth…” (Carlyle 195). Earlier in The French Revolution, Carlyle describes these French aristocrats as having “preserved Game not wisely but too well” (192). Invoking Othello (who “loved not wisely but too well” and killed the object of that love), the line emphasizes the self-defeating nature of those preserves.}

I'd paraphrase this as:

There was a monarchy in England and France, and the Clerical class in both nations thought everything would continue unchanged.

I interpret "preserves" like a game preserve, and the loaves and fishes to be Biblical. Who manages the dispersal of miracles like loaves and fishes? Priests and Bishops.

If you watch the History Channel documentary on The French Revolution, during the food shortages, a loaf of bread cost one month's of wages. The peasants were starving and the nobility and clergy were well fed. This hunger "turns to rage." Preserves here is more closely related "to an activity regarded as being reserved for a particular group"; however, it is not an activity but it is a supply of grain that was reserved for the upper classes. In fact, when the mob of people stormed Versailles, they did so because they thought the Aristocracy was hoarding grain. Also, among the core of the crowd were the powerfully strong "fish ladies of the central markets."