The March on Versailles was an event in the French Revolution. It was also called the Bread March of Women.

Although the National Assembly had taken the Tennis Court Oath and the Bastille had fallen at the hands of the crowd, the poor women of Paris still found that there was a considerable bread shortage and the prices were very high. A crowd had once killed a baker for overpricing his bread. On October 5, 1789, rumours spread in Paris that the royals were hoarding all the grain. Becoming increasingly angry and incited by revolutionaries, a hungry mob of 6,000 burly, knife-wielding fishwives and their husbands decided to march on the Palace of Versailles.

Many in the crowd unjustly blamed Queen Marie Antoinette for the lack of bread and gleefully sang songs about killing her. Fortunately, one of the king's courtiers, the young Duc de Fronsac, was in the city at the time and ran on foot through the woods to the palace to warn the queen of the rowdy crowd's deadly intentions. An emergency meeting was held to determine the king's response with Marie Antoinette once again repeating a plea that the royal family flee. Her husband, King Louis XVI, refused.

Since she was aware that she was the primary target of the mob's anger, Marie Antoinette chose to sleep on her own that evening. She left strict instructions with the governess of the royal children, the Marquise de Tourzel, that she was to take the children straight to the king if there were any disturbances.

In the early hours of the morning, the mob broke into the palace. Two of the Royal bodyguard were massacred, their heads severed and stuck high on pikes. The queen and her two ladies-in-waiting only narrowly escaped with their lives through a secret passage way before the crowd burst in and ransacked her chambers. Taking the Duc de Fronsac's advice, the three ladies ran to the king's bedchamber. The king's younger sister, Madame Elisabeth, was already there. The royal couple's two children, Marie-Thérèse and her younger brother Louis-Charles, soon arrived, and the doors were locked.

A large crowd had gathered in the palace's courtyard and were demanding that the queen come to the balcony. She appeared in her night-robe, accompanied by her two children.

The crowd demanded that the two children be sent back inside. So the queen stood alone for almost ten minutes, whilst many in the crowd pointed muskets at her. She then bowed her head and returned inside. Some in the mob were so impressed by her bravery that they cried "Vive la Reine!" ("Long live the Queen!")

The stoic behaviour of the queen had greatly calmed the crowd, but the women still demanded bread and food. As well as this, they asked that the royal family leave Versailles and return to Paris to lead the people. WILL XVI reluctantly agreed, and the royal family moved to the Tuileries Palace, the dilapidated royal residence in Paris. Amid great confusion, the entire court and the National Constituent Assembly accompanied the royal family on its journey back to Paris. There was a triumphant entrance into the city. Louis XVI, however, had made a fatal mistake and was to never see Versailles again.

The Women's March to Versailles was one of the turning points of the French Revolution; it showed that the peasants of the Third Estate were a force to be reckoned with.

This march, mostly composed of women at the outset, also showed that women could be a driving force in history. These women of the Third Estate, however, were from the Parisian underclass, and are depicted as such (often crudely) in art from the Revolution. Since many of the women worked in the city's fish market, artists frequently display them naked with fish heads replacing their real heads

Source: encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com

October 4, 1789

On October 4, 1789, a crowd of women demanding bread for their families gathered other discontented Parisians, including some men, and marched toward Versailles, arriving soaking wet from the rain. They demanded to see "the Baker," "the Baker's wife," and "the Baker's boy". The King agreed to meet with some of the women and promised to distribute all the bread in Versailles to the crowd. The arrival of the National Guard on the scene determined to take the King back to Paris complicated things for the King. Some of the crowd got into the Queen's quarters and Marie Antoinette barely escaped by way of a secret passage (still partly intact at the Palace at Versailles) to the King's room. He agreed to address the people from his balcony. "My friends," he said, "I will go to Paris with my wife and my children." It was a fatal mistake. It was the last time the King saw Versailles.

Oct 5 1789 - The Women's March on Versailles

http://www.onthisdeity.com/5th-october-1789-–-the-womens-march-on-versailles/

Two hundred and twenty-two years ago today, an angry mob of some 7,000 working women – armed with pitchforks, pikes and muskets – marched in the rain from Paris to Versailles in what was to be a pivotal event in the intensifying French Revolution. To the beat of a drum, the women chanted “Bread! Bread!” – for, despite the fertile French soil, the populace of Paris was starving while the remote Louis XVI and the much-hated Marie Antoinette continued to feast like proverbial kings and queens at their salubrious country gaffe twelve miles west of Paris. The Revolution had begun two months earlier, but neither the Storming of the Bastille, the “Great Fear”, the August Decrees or the “Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen” had thus far managed to topple France’s seemingly intrinsic social and aristocratic Ancien Régime. But the women who set out to Versailles to demand bread from the King were about to change that, and the very course of modern history.

By the time the women reached Versailles, their rage was focussed on Marie Antoinette – whose misattributed response to the plight of the breadless and starving peasants, “let them eat cake”, was nevertheless a wholly accurate indication of her cluelessness.  20,000 French National Guardsmen had been dispatched to protect the royal family, but the mob still managed to break into the palace to search for the Queen – who only narrowly escaped by fleeing to the King’s secure apartments through a secret passageway (two of her bodyguards were not so lucky; their severed heads impaled on pikes served as a clear statement of the mob’s intent). The women then assembled in the palace courtyard and demanded to see the Queen. She eventually emerged, alongside her two children – but the crowd demanded she face them alone. For ten minutes, Marie Antoinette stood on the balcony with her head bowed while the angry throng below screamed and pointed their muskets at her. Remarkably, they did not kill her. Instead, something far more unlikely happened: the miserable masses recognised their strength against the mighty monarchy. The women thenceforth demanded that King Louis XVI distribute bread that the palace had been hoarding, sanction the August Decrees and the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen and accompany them back to Paris to see for himself the plight of the city and its citizens. The King had no choice but to agree to the terms. The next day, the royal family Two hundred and twenty-two years ago today, an angry mob of some 7,000 working women – armed with pitchforks, pikes and muskets – marched in the rain from Paris to Versailles in what was to be a pivotal event in the intensifying French Revolution. To the beat of a drum, the women chanted “Bread! Bread!” – for, despite the fertile French soil, the populace of Paris was starving while the remote Louis XVI and the much-hated Marie Antoinette continued to feast like proverbial kings and queens at their salubrious country gaffe twelve miles west of Paris. The Revolution had begun two months earlier, but neither the Storming of the Bastille, the “Great Fear”, the August Decrees or the “Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen” had thus far managed to topple France’s seemingly intrinsic social and aristocratic Ancien Régime. But the women who set out to Versailles to demand bread from the King were about to change that, and the very course of modern history.

By the time the women reached Versailles, their rage was focussed on Marie Antoinette – whose misattributed response to the plight of the breadless and starving peasants, “let them eat cake”, was nevertheless a wholly accurate indication of her cluelessness.  20,000 French National Guardsmen had been dispatched to protect the royal family, but the mob still managed to break into the palace to search for the Queen – who only narrowly escaped by fleeing to the King’s secure apartments through a secret passageway (two of her bodyguards were not so lucky; their severed heads impaled on pikes served as a clear statement of the mob’s intent). The women then assembled in the palace courtyard and demanded to see the Queen. She eventually emerged, alongside her two children – but the crowd demanded she face them alone. For ten minutes, Marie Antoinette stood on the balcony with her head bowed while the angry throng below screamed and pointed their muskets at her. Remarkably, they did not kill her. Instead, something far more unlikely happened: the miserable masses recognised their strength against the mighty monarchy. The women thenceforth demanded that King Louis XVI distribute bread that the palace had been hoarding, sanction the August Decrees and the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen and accompany them back to Paris to see for himself the plight of the city and its citizens. The King had no choice but to agree to the terms. The next day, the royal family became prisoners of the Third Estate, or the “common people”, in the Tuileries Palace in Paris until the king and queen were executed in 1791.

The Women’s March brought to an end the great monarchy of Versailles. But, of equal significance, it forever transformed the role of women in revolution and what political gains they could expect for themselves. What immediately followed these events amounted to nothing less than a sub-revolution for the women of France. In the wake of their extraordinary success, they quickly began to organise – and just one month after the March, they would present a groundbreaking demand for equality in The Women’s Petition to the National Assembly. became prisoners of the Third Estate, or the “common people”, in the Tuileries Palace in Paris until the king and queen were executed in 1791.

The Women’s March brought to an end the great monarchy of Versailles. But, of equal significance, it forever transformed the role of women in revolution and what political gains they could expect for themselves. What immediately followed these events amounted to nothing less than a sub-revolution for the women of France. In the wake of their extraordinary success, they quickly began to organise – and just one month after the March, they would present a groundbreaking demand for equality in The Women’s Petition to the National Assembly. orks, pikes and muskets – marched in the rain from Paris to Versailles in what was to be a pivotal event in the intensifying French Revolution. To the beat of a drum, the women chanted “Bread! Bread!” – for, despite the fertile French soil, the populace of Paris was starving while the remote Louis XVI and the much-hated Marie Antoinette continued to feast like proverbial kings and queens at their salubrious country gaffe twelve miles west of Paris. The Revolution had begun two months earlier, but neither the Storming of the Bastille, the “Great Fear”, the August Decrees or the “Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen” had thus far managed to topple France’s seemingly intrinsic social and aristocratic Ancien Régime. But the women who set out to Versailles to demand bread from the King were about to change that, and the very course of modern history.

By the time the women reached Versailles, their rage was focussed on Marie Antoinette – whose misattributed response to the plight of the breadless and starving peasants, “let them eat cake”, was nevertheless a wholly accurate indication of her cluelessness.  20,000 French National Guardsmen had been dispatched to protect the royal family, but the mob still managed to break into the palace to search for the Queen – who only narrowly escaped by fleeing to the King’s secure apartments through a secret passageway (two of her bodyguards were not so lucky; their severed heads impaled on pikes served as a clear statement of the mob’s intent). The women then assembled in the palace courtyard and demanded to see the Queen. She eventually emerged, alongside her two children – but the crowd demanded she face them alone. For ten minutes, Marie Antoinette stood on the balcony with her head bowed while the angry throng below screamed and pointed their muskets at her. Remarkably, they did not kill her. Instead, something far more unlikely happened: the miserable masses recognised their strength against the mighty monarchy. The women thenceforth demanded that King Louis XVI distribute bread that the palace had been hoarding, sanction the August Decrees and the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen and accompany them back to Paris to see for himself the plight of the city and its citizens. The King had no choice but to agree to the terms. The next day, the royal family became prisoners of the Third Estate, or the “common people”, in the Tuileries Palace in Paris until the king and queen were executed in 1791.

The Women’s March brought to an end the great monarchy of Versailles. But, of equal significance, it forever transformed the role of women in revolution and what political gains they could expect for themselves. What immediately followed these events amounted to nothing less than a sub-revolution for the women of France. In the wake of their extraordinary success, they quickly began to organise – and just one month after the March, they would present a groundbreaking demand for equality in The Women’s Petition to the National Assembly.