Women’s March on Versailles
Also called: October Days, March on Versailles
Angered by the price of bread, the women of Paris marched to Versailles, broke into the palace and brought the royal family back to the Tuileries in Paris.
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In the autumn of 1789 Paris was short of bread, and word spread that at a banquet in Versailles the royal guards had trampled the revolutionary tricolour cockade. On the morning of 5 October market women gathered at the Hôtel de Ville demanding bread and arms, and six to seven thousand walked some 20 km to Versailles in the rain. Lafayette reluctantly followed with about 15,000 National Guardsmen.
At dawn the next day the crowd broke into the palace and killed two guards; Queen Marie Antoinette barely escaped. The king appeared on a balcony and promised to go to Paris, and that afternoon the royal family was taken to the Tuileries Palace surrounded by a procession of over 60,000. The Assembly soon followed. From then on the king lived in effect under the watch of the Paris crowd.
