Stanislas-Marie Maillard

As a national guardsman, he participated in the attack on the Bastille, being the first revolutionary to get into the fortress, and also accompanied the women who marched to Versailles on 5 October 1789.

The October days consisted of the famous march of the poissardes, or market women, to Versailles, to demand bread and justice against the royal bodyguards who had supposedly disrespected the revolution.

Presenting himself as the spokesperson for the women's grievances, Maillard presented the following statement before the Constituent Assembly: « Nous sommes à Versailles pour demander du pain et en même temps pour punir les gardes du corps qui ont insulté la cocarde patriotique1.

This latter statement referred to rumors that, at the banquet of 2 October 1789, put on for the visiting Flanders regiment by the royal bodyguards, the national cockade had been trampled underfoot.

Charged by the Commune of Paris in September 1792 to put an end to recent wholesale massacres of prisoners, he would play a controversial role.