Saturday, February 27, 2016

A BUBBLEHEAD RISES TO THE OCCASION

HER COURAGE WHEN FACED WITH A CROWD WANTING TO KILL HER CONTRADICTS HER FRIVOLOUIS IMAGE

-- Michelet, an ardent republican, does not say so, but it is what his narrative implies: pp. 51-59.

On October 5, 1789 7-8,000 women seize arms at City Hall and march on Versailles, to demand grain and bring the king back to Paris.

The March at Passy, a famous print estampe (Passy is a wealthy suburb on the route to Versailles) / zoom

Militants threaten to cut the hair of women who do not join them.

"The certain cause, for the women, for the crowd of the most miserable, was hunger. Having made a rider dismount, they killed the horse and ate it almost raw.

Would the men have marched on Versailles if the women had not preceded them? Probably not. No one had had the idea of going to find the king."

Michelet on the women's engagement:

"Great misery is fierce, it strikes the most feeble"

Summary: They were more exposed to hunger than men, because more isolated, with children who cried and died, or seamstresses who worked alone (he does not mention washerwomen, whose work was sociable). Not all militants, he adds, were hungry, such as market-women and prostitutes, but misery surrounded them.

Bring the king back to Paris:

"The King must live with his people, feel and share the suffering [...] If Kingship be not tyranny, there must be a mariage, a community [...] Is it not strange and unnatural, enough to dry the heart of kings, to keep them in selfish solitude, with an artificial crowd of golden beggars, to make them forget the people? How be surprised that such kings become hard and barbarous strangers?"

# # #

The march was much tougher than this movie shows. It was a cold, rainy October day and the crowd walked in mud.

One woman seized a drum from guards and beat as they advanced through the streets. Others join them:

These photos and the next come from "The French Revolution by Robert Enrico, 1989

The child is imaginary but the drumbeat's stirring call was real.

Thousands of women arrive at Versailles toward 16h. The National Guard led by Lafayette* and a crowd of men join them a few hours later.

*Americans' only foreign hero was active in both revolutions.

Internet, no source named

Several hundred men dressed as women are said to have joined them.

The crowd arrives around 4 pm. The king receives a delegation of women and agrees to send grain to Paris and to sign the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen. He says he will think about coming to Paris.

The throng camps out in the palace's huge courtyard:

Lafayette, who is responsible for the king's safety, thinks all is well, goes to sleep and wakes up only after the mob has stormed the palace: He will be called "General Morpheus."

# # #

At dawn on October 6, people break through the gates and seek the queen to kill her:

Chambermaids lock the door and help Marie-Antoinette throw on a dress:

Here and below, Marie-Antoinette by Jean Delannoy with Michèle Morgan, 1956

They take a secret passage that leads to the king's room, but he has left to look for them. They rush through the palace to find him. A locked door adds to the panic: It is five minutes before a servant hears the terrified pounding.

Two guards who try to protect the queen are killed:

"Brigands Massacre a Guard at the Queen's Apartment," print by Jean-François Janinent / zoom

The queen and the chambermaids finally find the king, the children, their governess and Lafayette, in the salon that looks out on the courtyard:

General La Fayette Advises the King and Queen on October 6, 1789 by Jean-Frédéric Shall, before 1825, zoom

Louis refuses to let his troops fire on the crowd and tries to talk to it...

But it demands to see the queen who comes out on the balcony with the children. The mob screams, "No children!"

After the terrifying awakening and the frantic rush through the palace, Marie-Antoinette calmly faces the throng that had wished to kill her:

# # #

The king is forced to settle in Paris, asking only that his family come too. "The royal coach, La Fayette riding alongside it, advanced like a hearse."

His carriage leads the march, surrounded by people carrying the heads of the murdered guards on pikes. The court follows in a hundred coaches:

Zoom

The Escape of Louis XVI by Viktor Lazarevski, 2013 (in French) / Youtube

"In the midst of that troop of cannibals rose up the two heads of the massacred guards. The monsters, who had made trophies of them, had the atrocious idea of forcing a wig-maker to re-style their coiffures by powdering their bloodied heads...

-- Madame Campan