Women's March on Versailles
On 5–6 October 1789, a crowd of several thousand Parisian women — market sellers, laundrywomen, and working poor outraged by bread shortages and soaring prices — gathered at the Paris city hall and then marched the twelve miles to Versailles armed with pikes, muskets, and at least one cannon. They were joined by National Guard troops and Lafayette. Arriving at the palace, they forced Louis XVI to promise affordable bread and to sanction the August decrees, then killed two royal bodyguards who fired on them at dawn. Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, and their children were compelled to accompany the crowd back to Paris — a journey of six hours, the royal family effectively captive within their own coach, surrounded by women carrying pikes. The family was installed in the Tuileries Palace, which they would not leave freely again. The march had two permanent consequences: the monarchy was now under direct popular surveillance in the capital rather than insulated at Versailles, and the National Assembly followed to Paris, where it was permanently exposed to pressure from the radical Paris sections. The centre of revolutionary gravity had permanently shifted from Versailles to the streets of Paris.
- Year: 1789 CE
- Category: Social
