It was on 05 October 1789 that women in Paris led a march on Versailles. Throughout the fall, the price of grain had been rising, and there was a shortage of bread. Ordinary people were starving, and anger was high. On October 4th, the press reported that there had been a huge banquet a few days earlier at the palace of Versailles to celebrate a new group of officers. According to reports, the banquet had been decadent, with an abundance of rich food and good wine. Even worse, they reported that the drunken officers had trampled on the tricolor republican cockade, and that it had been done with the approval of Queen Marie Antoinette (which was probably not true, since the royal family had departed the feast long before any revelry began). This news was the last straw for Parisian women who were struggling to get food on their families' tables.
On the cold, rainy morning of October 5th, a group of women began to march across the city, from the markets in east Paris toward the Hôtel de Ville. A girl started off the march by beating on a drum, and soon churches across the city were ringing the tocsin, the alarm bell. More and more women joined the march, about 6,000 by the time they reached the Hôtel de Ville. The women had armed themselves with whatever they could find, from muskets and swords to pitchforks and broomsticks. Most of them were regular workingwomen — laundresses, fishwives, or market women. According to false accounts written at the time, the crowd was composed largely of prostitutes and cross-dressers, a report made up because people didn't want to believe that normal women would do anything so radical.
A few men joined in, including a national guardsman named Stanislas Maillard. He had been an active participant in the storming of the Bastille in July, so he was respected by the women. The women were planning to burn down the Hôtel de Ville and hang several government employees, but Maillard convinced them that their real issue was not with these city officials but with the royals at the palace of Versailles. There, he said, the women should demand that the king and queen return to Paris to be with the French people, rather than stay removed in their beautiful palace.
So the crowd turned and marched 13 miles in the rain to Versailles, a journey of about six hours, gaining more and more marchers as they went. About 20,000 members of the National Guard decided to follow in support, and once the crowd reached Versailles, they found even more supporters waiting for them.
The marchers arrived at Versailles in the evening, and a small group of market women were allowed inside to speak directly with King Louis XVI. He agreed to supply them with food, but the crowd wanted more. Throughout the evening, the king agreed to more and more demands, but the marchers remained unsatisfied.
At about 6 a.m. the next morning, they found their way through a small unguarded gate and stormed the palace. A royal guard shot a young woman, and in return guards were attacked. Two were killed and their heads placed on pikes. For hours there was total chaos, with the king and queen locked in a bedroom. Finally the royal family appeared on the balcony and agreed to one of the original demands of the women: to return with them to Paris.
That evening, a crowd estimated at 60,000 people marched back to Paris. The king, queen, and their young son were at the front of the procession in a carriage, surrounded by women carrying laurel branches. Then came the National Guard, with wagons filled with grain and flour, and finally thousands more women, still carrying their weapons. Walking in the rain and up to their ankles in mud, the women chanted that they were bringing "the baker, the baker's wife, and the baker's boy."