Women's March on Versailles (1789): Bringing the King to Paris

The Women’s March on Versailles, also known as the October Days, took place on 5 and 6 October 1789, when thousands of Parisian women marched about 20 kilometres to the royal palace to demand bread and action from Louis XVI. The march ended with the King and his family being escorted to Paris, where they lived under the watch of the capital’s population. It was one of the decisive popular interventions of the French Revolution and showed how hunger and politics had become inseparable.

Background: bread and suspicion

The summer of 1789 had transformed France. The storming of the Bastille in July had broken royal authority in Paris, and in August the National Assembly abolished feudal privileges and adopted the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. Louis XVI, however, delayed giving his formal approval to these texts.

Daily life in Paris remained hard. The poor harvest of 1788 had pushed bread prices to very high levels, and although the new harvest was in, supplies to the capital were irregular. Women, who did most of the household shopping, queued for hours at bakers’ shops and were often the first to protest.

Suspicion of the court grew when the Flanders Regiment was brought to Versailles in late September. On 1 October the royal bodyguards gave a banquet for its officers in the palace opera house. Radical newspapers reported that the tricolour cockade, the badge of the Revolution, had been trampled and replaced with the white cockade of the monarchy. Whether or not every detail was true, the story was widely believed in Paris.

The march of 5 October

On the morning of 5 October a crowd of women, many of them market traders from Les Halles and residents of the working-class faubourgs, gathered at the Hôtel de Ville, the city hall. They seized weapons stored there and rang the tocsin, the alarm bell. Stanislas Maillard, who had taken part in the capture of the Bastille, agreed to lead them and tried to keep the march orderly.

Estimates usually put the marchers at around 6,000 to 7,000, though figures vary. In heavy rain they walked the road to Versailles, dragging several cannon and carrying pikes, muskets and kitchen tools. Men, some disguised as women, joined along the way.

In Paris, the National Guard pressed its commander, the marquis de Lafayette, to follow. After hours of hesitation he set out in the late afternoon with an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 guardsmen, arriving at Versailles around midnight.

At Versailles

The marchers reached Versailles in the late afternoon. Many crowded into the National Assembly, which was in session, while a small delegation of women was taken to see the King. Louis XVI received them politely and promised supplies of grain; one young flower seller, Pierrette Chabry, reportedly fainted in his presence.

That evening, under pressure from the Assembly and the crowd, Louis agreed to accept the August decrees and the Declaration of the Rights of Man. Lafayette assured the royal family that his guardsmen would keep order, and he went to bed in the early morning.

At dawn on 6 October part of the crowd found an unguarded entrance and burst into the palace. Two of the King’s bodyguards were killed and their heads were put on pikes. Marie Antoinette escaped from her bedroom through a passage to the King’s apartments moments before attackers reached her door.

Lafayette restored order with his guardsmen. He appeared with the royal family on a balcony overlooking the Marble Courtyard, and in a famous gesture kissed the Queen’s hand to calm the crowd. The crowd demanded that the King come to Paris, and Louis agreed.

The journey to Paris

On the afternoon of 6 October a long procession left Versailles. It included the royal carriage, National Guardsmen, wagons of flour from the palace stores and the marchers, some carrying the heads of the dead bodyguards. Parisians in the crowd famously called the royal family “the baker, the baker’s wife and the baker’s boy”, expressing the hope that their presence would bring bread.

The journey took several hours. After a reception at the Hôtel de Ville, the family were lodged in the long-neglected Tuileries Palace. The National Assembly soon followed and from November 1789 met in the Salle du Manège, a former riding school beside the Tuileries gardens.

Key people

• Louis XVI gave in to the crowd’s demands and left Versailles, the seat of the monarchy since the reign of Louis XIV, for good.
• Marie Antoinette was a principal target of popular anger; her narrow escape on 6 October became one of the most retold episodes of the Revolution.
• The marquis de Lafayette, commander of the Paris National Guard, prevented greater bloodshed, but critics on both sides accused him of arriving late or of failing to protect the palace.
• Stanislas Maillard led the women’s column and later gave evidence about the march.
• The market women of Paris, mostly unnamed, were the driving force of the day.

Consequences

The October Days ended the monarchy’s ability to act at a distance from Paris. From now on the King and the Assembly lived within reach of the capital’s crowds, clubs and press, which greatly increased the influence of the Parisian population on national politics.

The events also pushed moderates out of politics. Some deputies who favoured a strong royal veto, such as Jean-Joseph Mounier, withdrew from the Assembly. For the royal family, life in the Tuileries felt like captivity, and this sense contributed to the decision to attempt the Flight to Varennes in June 1791.

Myths and facts

• “Let them eat cake.” There is no reliable evidence that Marie Antoinette said this. A similar phrase appears in Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Confessions, written when she was a child in Austria.
• Only women marched. Women started and led the march, but men joined during the day, and the National Guard played a central role at Versailles.
• Théroigne de Méricourt led the march. This Belgian-born revolutionary was later linked with the October Days in popular accounts, but evidence for a leading role is weak.

Legacy

The march became a lasting symbol of women’s participation in the Revolution, even though the new constitution denied women political rights. Prints of armed women hauling cannon circulated widely in 1789 and shaped the image of the poissardes, the market women of Paris, as a revolutionary force.

Historians have debated whether the march was spontaneous or encouraged by political factions, including supporters of the duc d’Orléans. Most now see it as rooted in genuine hardship, channelled by the political climate of the moment. The Palace of Versailles, abandoned by the court after 6 October, never again served as the residence of a French king.

Timeline

• 1789, 1 October: Royal bodyguards hold a banquet for the Flanders Regiment at Versailles.
• 1789, 5 October, morning: Women gather at the Hôtel de Ville in Paris and seize weapons.
• 1789, 5 October, afternoon: The marchers reach Versailles; Lafayette leaves Paris with the National Guard.
• 1789, 5 October, evening: Louis XVI accepts the August decrees and the Declaration of the Rights of Man.
• 1789, 6 October, dawn: Crowds break into the palace; two bodyguards are killed.
• 1789, 6 October, afternoon: The royal family leaves Versailles and is lodged in the Tuileries.
• 1789, 9 November: The National Assembly holds its first sitting in the Salle du Manège in Paris.

Why it matters

The Women’s March on Versailles moved the centre of French power from the royal palace to Paris. By bringing the King to the capital, ordinary Parisians, led by women, ensured that the Revolution would be shaped by the pressure of the city’s streets.