Women's March on Versailles

These events ended the king's independence and heralded a new balance of power that would ultimately displace the established, privileged orders of the French nobility in favor of the common people, collectively known as the Third Estate.

Following poor harvests, the deregulation of the grain market in 1774 implemented by Turgot, Louis XVI's Controller-General of Finances was a main cause of the famine which led to the Flour War in 1775.

[3] The king's court and the deputies of the National Constituent Assembly resided comfortably in the royal city of Versailles, where they were considering momentous changes to the French political system.

Reformist deputies had managed to pass sweeping legislation in the weeks after the Bastille's fall, including the revolutionary August Decrees (which formally abolished most noble and clerical privileges) and the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.

[7] Numerous calls for a mass demonstration at Versailles had already been made; notably, the Marquis of Saint-Huruge, one of the popular orators of the Palais-Royal, had militated for just such a march in August to evict the obstructionist deputies who, he claimed, were protecting the King's veto power.

[9] Speakers at the Palais-Royal mentioned it regularly,[10] fanning suspicions that its proprietor, Louis Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, was secretly fomenting a mass action against Versailles.

[13] The lavish banquet was certain to be an affront to those suffering in a time of severe austerity, but it was reported in the L'Ami du peuple and other firebrand newspapers as nothing short of a gluttonous orgy.

[15] On the morning of 5 October, a young woman struck a marching drum at the edge of a group of market-women who were infuriated by the chronic shortage and high price of bread.

Although hardly a man of gentle disposition,c Maillard helped, by force of character, to suppress the mob's worst instincts; he rescued the Hôtel de Ville's quartermaster, Pierre-Louis Lefebvre-Laroche, a priest commonly known as Abbé Lefebvre, who had been strung up on a lamppost for trying to safeguard its gunpowder storage.

Maillard deputized a number of women as group leaders and gave a loose sense of order to the proceedings as he led the crowd out of the city in the driving rain.

Rather than see them leave as another anarchic mob, the Parisian municipal government told Lafayette to guide their movements; they also instructed him to request that the king return voluntarily to Paris to satisfy the people.

Sending a swift horseman forward to warn Versailles, Lafayette contemplated the near mutiny of his men: he was aware that many of them had openly promised to kill him if he did not lead or get out of the way.

Famine was a real and ever-present dread for the lower strata of the Third Estate, and rumors of an "aristocrats' plot" to starve the poor were rampant and readily believed.

Notably, there was common resentment against the reactionary attitudes prevailing in court circles[17] even before the uproar sparked by the notorious banquet precipitated the political aspects of the march.

[26] Activists in the crowd spread the word that the King needed to dismiss his royal bodyguards entirely and replace them all with patriotic National Guardsmen, a line of argument that resonated with Lafayette's soldiers.

For revolutionaries, the preservation of their recent legislative victories and the creation of a constitution were of paramount importance and a lockdown of the King within reformist Paris would provide a propitious environment for the revolution to succeed.

At about six o'clock in the evening, the king made a belated effort to quell the rising tide of insurrection: he announced that he would accept the August decrees and the Declaration of the Rights of Man without qualification.

[36] Adequate preparations to defend the palace were not made, however: the bulk of the royal guards, who had been deployed under arms in the main square for several hours facing a hostile crowd, were withdrawn to the far end of the park of Versailles.

The royal guards retreated through the palace, bolting doors and barricading hallways and those in the compromised sector, the cour de marbre, fired their guns at the intruders, killing a young member of the crowd.

[50] While the guet (watch) of Gardes du Corps on palace duty overnight had shown courage in protecting the royal family, the main body of the regiment had abandoned their position near the Triannon and retreated to Rambouillet at dawn.

[19] At about one o'clock in the afternoon of 6 October 1789, the vast throng escorted the royal family and a complement of one hundred deputies back to the capital, with the armed National Guards leading the way.

[54] The procession could seem merry at times, as guardsmen hoisted up loaves of bread stuck on the tips of their bayonets, and some of the market women rode gleefully astride the captured cannon.

[35] Yet, even as the crowd sang pleasantries about their "Good Papa", a violent undercurrent was clearly in evidence; celebratory gunshots flew over the royal carriage and some marchers carried pikes bearing the heads of the slaughtered Versailles guards.

After arriving at the dilapidated Tuileries Palace, abandoned since the reign of Louis XIV, he was asked for his orders and he replied with uncharacteristic diffidence, "Let everyone put himself where he pleases!".

[58] The October journées thus effectively deprived the monarchist faction of significant representation in the Assembly[59] as most of these deputies retreated from the political scene; many, like Mounier, fled the country altogether.

Louis attempted to work within the framework of his limited powers after the women's march but won little support, and he and the royal family remained virtual prisoners in the Tuileries.

[62] Even while the women were marching, suspicious eyes looked upon Louis Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, already behind the July uprisings, as being somehow responsible for the event.

"[42] Many scholars believe that the Duke paid agents provocateurs to fan the discontent in the marketplaces and to conflate the women's march for bread with the drive to bring the king back to Paris.

[64] Still others go so far as to assert that the crowd was guided by such important Orléanist allies as Antoine Barnave, Choderlos de Laclos, and the duc d'Aiguillon, all dressed as poissardes in women's clothes.

The occupation of the deputies' benches in the Assembly created a template for the future, ushering in the mob rule that would frequently influence successive Parisian governments.