In 1789, a group of protesters -- mostly women -- marched from Paris to Versailles to pressure King Louis XVI to address France's food shortage.
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This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
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will continue stuff. You missed in history from Housetop works, not allowing upon cancer. We frying and I'm crazy Wilson retracing. You know it's all over the news that the moment Rota yeah protest,
just so. I thought they move talk about the women's March, but not the one. You're thinking about the one that happens on verse
seventeen under it. It's the way,
The moment I heard about it. I said: hey Holly
you might want to do this at the third
yeah it's one of those things that I knew about in sort of an abstract way, but I didn't realize it's all. I
not really aware of all the details of it. So this is an event that took place quite early on in the french revolution. As we mention
for any time we touch on the french revolution
is a long and winding road. So this is the very early start of it
It started with a bread shortage. This is kind of one of the more famous aspects of the french revolution.
As with any historical event, there are multiple causes that lead up to this thing happening. So we're gonna talk about each of them in kind of put the pieces together before we get to the actual march and first in the set up we're going to talk about Versailles. Versailles is located
twelve miles, which is a little more than nineteen kilometers from Paris to the South West of the city.
Originally featured Louie. The thirteenth chateau was stonework hunting lodge designed to be a get away, but under the next king of France, that became something quite different, eventually
solving into a very opulent seat of the monarchy. The palace in a complex of other buildings, built during the seven decade reign of Louis, the fourteenth at the time just prior to the revolution, included governmental office buildings, the Royal gardens, the grand tree among the petty trionel, stables, hunting grounds and multiple structures to house all of the people who lived there, which included many many servants, its estimated that at the time of Louis, the sixteen Threem as many
sixty thousand people were living on the grounds of Versailles. It was in effect its own city, and it was a luxurious place. The palace, of course, was the most lab,
while the buildings with more than two thousand rooms more than
seven hundred and twenty thousand square feet, which is about sixty seven thousand square metres of floorspace, more than four dozen staircases, and then all that space was decorated with fine art and furniture. There were at least fifteen thousand paintings in the palace, plus tapestries glass work and lack of gold leaf. It took a staff of thousands, just
maintain the palace and the grounds. Yes, if you ve ever visited Versailles, you know it is massive, but it's one of those things. Where do you think about lake? The house you live in and whatever the square footage is like. You know at the end
sort of apartment. Anything in Atlanta is about twelve hundred square feet, set them better link of rapid how masses.
I really it's a small town just in the palace ears like multiply that time. Seven honey
and twenty in L, a view
Of the royal of the nobility who occupied Versailles? It was a house of the people, or at least that's what they told themselves. Anyone could visit
and wander around basically unimpeded. So, but even though the lower classes could visits, the really important thing about Versailles is that it was where the king spent a basically all his time
that meant that the seat of government was it a remove from the city of Paris and the common people by the timely. The sixteenth was ruler in the MID seventeen. Seventy is the grain market in France with the regulated. This was part of a larger
cannot make plan on the part of all Robert Zack Toronto, who was serving as the Minister of Finance, trade and public works under King Louis. The sixteenth we had at this point become the ruler of France,
Introduce blanket philosophy was no bankruptcy, no tax increases, no borrowing and he did have a
the impact on the french economy, his policies lead to a decrease in the deficit and an increase in credit. For a brief time,
but Walter Show did seem to have some good ideas about handling France's money. He really
pretty serious problems after a couple years, around seventeen seventy six first, he established a freedom of enterprise and competition policy and thus made Fran
His craft guilds really angry because they had previously controlled all that, and then he shifted the taxes in kind where a portion of agricultural production was used as a form of payment. You change that to a direct money tax.
This was intended to garner the government a more liquid income, but it really made everyone angry
yeah. So to him. This
fallen under no tax increases because we're still taxing the same. We just now want the cash instead of the crops, but of course that's not really the same. When you're the person
The payment, so Tirzah resigned at this point Lui. The sixteenth was really frustrated
Antoinette and the Minister of State can have urged to Joe to step down and he was
actually replaced by Jacques no care, but his legacy in the green market would continue after the green market went free trade
without any price controls, there were a number of years where the grain harvest was also poor in seventeen. Eighty eight crop was especially bad.
Then the following winter was a lot colder than normal. Once the temperature rose enough to melt some of the freeze, there was flooding which affected greater ease and fields.
Making seventeen, eighty, nine and especially hard year for farming before there was even a chance to plant anything. Yet it was basically kind of doom from this
at this point- and this was in addition to the fact that the population of France had grown by about eight million people over the course of approximately eight decades, while France's agriculture, which was its primary,
economic driver had Steve roughly the term the same in terms of size. The grain shortage drove up prices first, making it difficult for the average
citizens to afford to buy grain, and then there was so little,
that only the very rich could actually purchase it in
Nineteen. Eighty eight, the labourers of Paris were spending about half of their wages just to purchase bread,
The following year, the shrinking supply had pushed that percentage up to about eighty
percent of wages just going to bread, yeah, that's an approximation, because you'll see figures cited
or anywhere from seventy two ninety percent- so I just went right in the middle at eighty and for his part, Nick here had actually retired from government finance, but he returned to the position of director general of finance in seventeen. Eighty eight at the request of law
the sixteenth. He would also be dismissed, am recalled again. You know the king and his directors of finance had some problems in seventeen, eighty nine and during his two times being recalled to office, he did make efforts to assuage the suffering of France's hungry people by ban.
The export of grain regulating the grey market again and arranging to have additional green imported, but it was
enough to make up the pews gap that have been created by all of these poor harvests coming up,
get into an effort only. We the part to try to address these problems, but first we're going to take a break for a quick word from a sponsored putty cleared out my whole data LISA Car the whole day.
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clearly the sixteenth hand,
already inherited economic train wreck from his grandfather, and things had only gotten worse while he had been on the throne so to try to find
the way to solve the problem. He assembled the estates general and this general assembly, consisting of representatives of the estates of the realm. That would be the clergy, which was the first to state the nobility, which was the second estate and the commoners which were the third estate, had not been brought together since the early, sixteen hundreds, but this situation was dire. At this point, France was spending
Almost fifty percent of its national income to pay the debt accrued over a very long period of poor fiscal management of the remaining fifty percent. Six percent was allocated to the maintenance of Versailles. The rest of it went to the military and public works,
in this assembly and what came out of it could easily be its own episode,
was a law that happened, but for the purposes of discussing the women's March in Versailles, we're gonna keep it fairly simple and do pretty much the broad strokes. So, after a long series of squabbles and seeming impasse, the third estate broke away and formed its own initiative. Under the name of the National Assembly, you ve probably heard of the tennis court oath, but just in case you haven't or your fuzzy about the details. This was a very
How made by the members of the General Assembly on a tennis court after being locked out of the hall where they had been meeting quote not to separate
the reassemble wherever circumstances require until the constitution of the kingdom is established and consolidated upon solid foundations,
so they wanted to develop a constitutional monarchy and they were going to write that constitution and they promised they were gonna, stick together and do it and work together until it was done, and after the king concluded the estates general meeting which had spawned the General Assembly, and nothing had really. You know been resolved.
The states general gathering the group known as a general assembly sort of disbanded you'll also to see it said, written that the renamed, but they re formed as the national constituent Assembly and that
here too, we should note that there were, even though its often called the gathering of the third estate. There were people from
the clergy and the nobility that were on board with this kind of joining in this group was meeting
the hall in the verse I complex when the women's March took place, so I told her first, seventeen, eighty nine there were they raucous party at precisely in the opera house that got a lot of publicity and at this fate, the
oil. Flanders regiment was welcomed by the kings bodyguard at the palace, nor the banquet, lots and lots of war.
And things quickly lost any sense of behavioral constrain. The soldiers
particular got very drunk and allegedly started slurring insults about the revolution. Stories appeared in the press that some of the soldier
but even thrown the tri color cods. Those are those pleaded ribbon badge
it had become emblems of the revolution onto the floor.
You're unaided on them and stamped on them
and then they allegedly put on the white ribbons of the bourbons or black ribbons, which were associated with the heiress, aristocratic counter revolution and
more their loyalty to Lily the sixteenth and his queen.
And while Lui the sixteenth had been at the party for some period of time. It was fairly brief, but some occur
claimed that he had been there for hours partying with these soldiers. This event was commemorated by print makers bet. They were largely fabricated. Depictions of this event, as the artists were working-
descriptions from other people, and maybe even rumours are basically filling in the details. Both the stories and the prince were not considered to be accurate.
But boy they were really proliferating throughout France, I'm, but though they were.
Were blown reports. They still garnered the eyes of the public for wine guy
in Versailles were bad mouthing. The revolution, which was just in its infancy and people, were really angry. To think that the king was hosting people, they were basically saying that that was stupid and
was for another. These men were being treated to a massive feast when many of France's people were going hungry and because this October First
Eddie was just another in the long line of incidents of waste on the part of the monarchy, while the common people suffer and it sparked lots of protest ye yet certainly not the first protest, but I will talk about that. It will in a moment- and additionally, there had been an expected bump in the availability of bread, so the Green Harvest- handy
place in September. There wasn't a lot, but there was some, so it seemed like there should be some bread available in their hand. As we said, Ben efforts on the part of the french government, under the stewardship of director general of Finance, Jaffna care to import additional green. So people thought that there should be some food to eat, but those supplies had not arrived yet in
Toby October, when this was going on the lack of green, even though there had been a that shipments had been arranged, caused all kinds of rumours to circulate
lines for even meagre portions of bread stretched for city blacks. People started to gossip that the shortage
purposely being arranged by the government to weaken the populace and make them more submissive, yeah
You combine the fact that there is no food with the fact that there are obviously these lavish parties and a lot of spending going on ever sigh. You know this ties and, of course, to the whole, let them eat cake false,
It is often reported that has been done
about the show before any previous hosts- and we ve certainly referenced it. Yeah
It's like a really sort episode back in the candles and maybe even Josh days, maybe Nguyen a long time ago. Yet mean basically
everything that was being reported was largely rumour, but he will were so upset that conspiracy theories were just sort of lake the standard of the day, and it was easy. It is believed that there must be something nefarious going on if they were having parties in the palace, while no one else can even get a loaf of bread. So that is why rumors were so rampant at the time there had been multiple calls for organised protests in the days and weeks leading up to October, but as grain issue, combined with the bad press around the party at risk,
I served as a catalyst. Protests started on October forth, with people marching in the streets to decry this rumoured party at Versailles, as well as the food scarcity, but they didn't really
come together until the following day on October fifth of seven
Eighty nine March started that would eventually cover the twelve plus miles from Paris to her side, but it didn't begin with that intense so
first part of the crowd assembled in the morning. It was outside the hotel de
That was the seat of the Parisian City Council, somewhere between five thousand and ten thousand people. Again, that's one of those.
The reporting is very, very widely varied
mostly women. They stood outside this.
Ministry of Building demanding that all the remaining green stores be released to the people, there was no response from the hotel de visa. So at that point the crowd decided to march right
monarchy, with their protest and by noon. The group had armed themselves with clubs, muskets pikes and the like and
out of Paris to walk to Versailles, basically the length of a half marathon. I know that
I kept thinking is that you know
he's done a half of them quite a number of half, whereas this is not
while distant it's one of those things that if you ve ever,
A mile and been that person's billing, I could do that twelve more times, as you probably could, but its exhausting, you might hurt yourself like I did it
Imagine doing that when you haven't had enough to eat in months. It's no small undertaking in it speaks to the level of frustration that was prevalent at the time among the people of Paris.
The royal family have received word of the protesters headed toward the palace, so they sought refuge in their private apartments and the gates were locked.
While women made up the majority of the martyrs, they were accompanied by a National Guard officer named Stanislaus, my yard. This was not for many of the martyrs. Their first protest.
A lot of the women as well as my art, had been part of the storming of the best deal several months earlier on July, fourteen and the group as it
made its way from Paris to recite grew. The exact numbers of the protests are difficult to gauge because there are varying
counts, as we know from our recent history, its kind enough to estimate crowds, I've, sometimes
members very anywhere from ten thousand to thirty thousand people, and the cloud had more than one aim in this protest and that happen, because it had become a combination of
Mitchell Group of women who were marching largely over food shortages and other groups that had joined in
own agendas regarding the revolution. So by the time they reached
Hi. There were several demands kind of being put forth by different factions. The group one was for the monarchy to address a food shortage which had really been the initial driver for the sole march. Another was for the king to relocate to Paris and rain from a position where he was with his people and not solely influenced by the aristocracy, and then there were people who just wanted to harm the king or really more specifically Marie Antoinette, because she started became too many people of France emblematic of the fiscal problems they were having because she was known for spending a lot of money when they had nothing. We will talk about how things played out once this protest actually got two per se.
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Law. The protesters would end up spending about twenty four hours at first sight. The two days of the protests October, fifth and sixth, are sometimes referred to as the October days or the October days March. In addition to being called the way,
March of Versailles, to attention to the situation. It was raining when the March got to the precise complex, so some of the women about twenty made their way into the hall where the national constituent assembly, with meeting along with my art. While this took the assembly by surprise. The group spoke with the protesters and heard them out, and my art did most of
talking on behalf of the demonstrators. The women and my art explained that there was no bread in Paris and that they needed the assembly's help, and so the
in drafting the proposed decree requesting that the king make every effort to get green circulating through the population in this paper.
All was ready. The women in my art for review gene
was half moon yea, who was president of the national constituent Assembly, deputized six of the women present, so they could enter the palace and make their case directly to King Louis. The sixteen and, for his part, the king seemed,
there. He heard what the women had to say and assured them tat. He would take action to address the food shortage. The crowd, however, was not placated by the words of the king and then attempt
mollify the situation Lui, the sixteenth, declared that the food stores oversize should be open and that the supplies within should be distributed. Among them still, the crowd was not soothe,
to attention to the moment a National Guard regiment led by the Marquis De Lafayette. Still the crowd was not soothed
attention to the moment, a National Guard regiment, led by the Marquis De Lafayette, had arrived at precise. Should military intervention be needed but lily? The sixteenth was against
the idea of using force and the situation tensions. Why?
then Wayne throughout the night, and although there were occasionally stray shots fired, the situation did not escalate into violence. Allegedly, there was even a fair
friendly relationship between some of the guardsmen and the crowd
given the Marquis De Lafayettes reputation and both the United States of France? That does not completely surprised me
yeah apparently suffer some of the guardsmen. We're just kind of mingling with the people they were there hanging out. They return, I gonna make a go of it vigorously,
here for the night, I guess, but as
night stretched on end dawn of October sixth approached it became apparent that there were factions.
Proud who had gotten really restless with the situation
They wanted more action on the part of the monarch to come to the aid of the people and they had become convinced that the queen, Marie Antoinette, would reverse the seemingly magnanimous efforts of her husband, the section of the protests,
became more and more agitated and eventually made their way into the palace in the early morning. In search of the queen. Their intent was the harm
and according to some accounts, to kill her, but as the queen fled the
Refraction was unable to keep up the pursuit for the palaces complex for plan and its many many doors.
Yeah. All of those two thousand rooms really paid off, because if you didn't know.
Three an exit points. It was hard to keep up with someone that was running through them, that new, the very well and in the midst,
pursuit. Those things turned violent when a guard fired upon two of the women protesters, one of them was killed, which fomented the rest of the group into retaliatory. Violence to soldiers were killed and
Bird, the Marquis de Fairy air nobleman, who is adversary. The time wrote of that morning, and here is what he said at six o clock in the morning. A crowd of women and armed men assembled in the square summoned by the meeting of drums, shouts of rage against the royal bodyguards were heard. One of those columns marched up to the royal.
But found it locked another got through by the gate of the chapel, which was open. One of the national guards of the verse militia led the way up to this, the kings staircase, some of the bodyguard ran up quote my friends. You love your king, and yet you even come to his palace to disturb him. No one answered the column continued to it.
Hence the bodyguard mustard in their hall. The doors were seen broken down and they were forced to evacuated. The conspirators approached the queen's apartments. Crying quote: we are going to cut off her head, tear out
art fry her liver, and that will be the end of it. Meal mandarin
to the door of the first Ante room, opened it hurriedly and called to Lady whom she saw save the queen
They mean to kill her. I am alone facing two thousand tigers. My comrades have been obliged to quit. Their haul ass
these few words my laundress shut the door and bravely waited for the conspirators. One of them tried to stab him with his pike parried the blow another. Taking the pike by the head struck him a blow with the but which felt him to the ground, stand back said the national guardsmen, who led the column, the crowd, made room for him, then measuring the butt of his musket against mainlanders head. He struck him with all his force so that the trigger penetrated his skin.
All male mantra streaming with blood was left for dead and eventually, with more manpower, summoned the military was able to get all of the protesters out of the palace
though the now angry mob remained outside Lafayette suggested that Lily the sixteenth addressed the crowd and the king went along with this plan, walking out to the balcony to tell the gathered people
He and the rest of the immediate royal family would travel to Paris and he declared his love for his people. He also put on a try, color cod and Louis words, sort of did the trick. His words were well received by the crowd and they did begin to cheer for him and
then left the balcony to be replaced by his wife and while she was not met with the same cheers
was not lost on the crowd that she was showing an incredible level of trust in making this
parents, so immediately after this foiled attempt on her life, the
morning. With spent preparing for travel and that
afternoon, Lui the sixteenth, Marie Antoinette and their children left Versailles, accompanied by several men.
The national constituent assembly and the crowd
had been at precise throughout the protest kingly, the sixteenth and the National
stitching assembly moved into the Palais De Chine on the right bank of the sin and well
generally was a palace originally built in the sixteenth century. It had not been in
active residence for decades. So there was some effort required to make it livable as a home
serviceable as a governmental hub in it. It's one of them
We will go where you moved into another palace, but it really was
a significant shift in their lifestyle from what they had been living in ever. I was the first
a hundred years that France was governed from Paris rather than from the Versailles, complex and lily the sixteenth in his family, never
was again here, so that was the women's March of Versailles that seemed effective alone, but a bloodshed. Unfortunately
Yeah I mean I, we you and I talked about a before. We started that I have this whole thing where I, when I read about Marie Antoinette and Lily the sixteenth,
and there have been some writings in recent years- that have fallen more in this angle, rather than the sort of more vilified versions, which is probably what I must have limits by they made so many stupid stupid moves. But I really think they just were not prepared for the roles that they found themselves in. Yet a sometimes our trade
like mustache twirling villains, cackling over everybody else's misfortune, Pierre just completely callous, and really, I think they just didn't get it. They had no grasp of the reality of France. I think we were the sixteenth
meant to do the right thing, but didn't know how he didn't know who to trust. He didn't he was it ever
confident enough in any of his advisers to really follow through on any plans that may have helped in the law
There are some historians that theorize that if Turkey had been allowed to stay in his position, running finances that he actually could have prevented the later events of the revolution. But we don't know, but yet I I go. They made so many poor choices and just bad decisions, but I really think, above all else, they were just foolish and preparing and the whole situation with exact
debated so much by like huge food shortages and this enormous disparity between the like the world of Versailles and the
although everyone else yeah yeah, it's it's a thing like out. How can you govern people? You don't even know or understand that in its it's a fascinating? I think that's why people are continue to be fascinated by Louis exceed the Marie Antoinette. It's just it's such a bizarre concept there so completely divorced from the people that they are
allegedly ruling that its there's a surreal level of out of touch us going on, which is again it fascinating, but I have listener male, that's nicer, obeyed. Yet so I'm couple postcards. The first is from our listener. Michel. It is a postcard that she sent us
of the wild bunch which we referenced in are robbers. Roost episode that we did in SALT Lake ashes, Tracy and Molly after listening to your recent live show about rubber.
Ruth, and how you love that Telluride Colorado uses which Cassidy's their claim to fame had to write to you. I grew
Montpelier Idaho. We not only have a plaque in front of the bank here,
the biggest ever museum commemorating that robbery. We even have a festival, businesses and businesses named for him. I love the show, keep it up.
So it is that famous photograph of the wild bunch that we talked about an episode where they all look for all the world like fancy businessmen in
Lovely suits and not in fact, like men on the run from the law. It such a good picture. It's one of those that, even though it
one picture legacies Alla time. I love it every time. I see it, the other one is from our listener Whitney and it is a little bit germane, not even just a little bit its germane to what we talked about today. She says I why these I wanted to drop you a line from Boston, a city,
in history. My husband and I are on our way home from the honeymoon from our honeymoon in ease oars and we,
resist a forty eight hour lay over in a city filled with history. Thank you for all. You do the fantastic progress, but the postcard that she sent us is a postcard with a quote
Abigail adamses. Remember the ladys and be more generous and favourable to them in the back explains that it is part of atoms letters. The quota for the car,
what follows are both part of a letter sent by Abigail Adams to her husband, John Adams, David March, thirty. First, seventeen, seventy six. So again, that's the same time. All of this stuff is playing out, if particular care and attention is not paid to the Ladys. We are deterred
to foment a rebellion and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or representation, so that just seemed pertinent city.
Discussion of the women who marched on Versailles again, at the same time, that all of that Abigail Adams was doing her writing around the same time. I should say so. Thank you. Thank you both for sending his postcards and everyone else who has sent us cards that we haven't gotten to read on the air. I have a massive pilot, my desk, and I'm trying to figure out what I want to do with them, because I don't want to get rid of them, but I have to figure out a better storage plan, then piling them a right which is
I have quickly become lake and ask the ground level trash monster of things just piling around my desk, I'm not good at organizing the special relationships, certainly,
if you would like it to us. Please do so at history. Pod cast a house of works dot com. You can also find us across the spectrum of social media at missed in history that includes twitter at missed in history pinterest. As Mr History, Facebook, our complex, missed in history, missed in history that tumblr dot com and Baronne Instagram is at least in history. If you would like to visit our site, which is missed in history, dot com, you can do that. You will find an archive of every episode of the bank. S is ever existed as well as shown us for any the episodes Tracy and I have worked on together as well as some other cool stuff. Any visit, our parents site house works dot com type in a search.
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The more on this and thousands of other topics. Does it how stuff works tat. We are living in complicated times, I'm seventy rule, MSNBC Anchor and NBC News correspondent in my new pod cast modern rules. I'm gonna be spending time unpacking some of the Harry's of today's tat. I decided I was you survived survival spread equal aboard. They won't need its american listen and subscribe to my new pod cast modern rules on Apple five test, the IRA, radio or wherever you get your pocket.
Transcript generated on 2020-01-27.