COUNTER-POWER TO VERSAILLES

THE GARDENS BECOME THE PLACE FOR NEWSPAPERS, CAFÉS, SPEECHES, NEWS, RUMORS AND PROPAGANDA

        Paperblog, no source given; please scroll down

"Those magnificent gardens were the meeting-place of foreigners,

debauchees, idlers and especially agitators...

The most radical speeches were given in the cafés or in the garden itself. An orator would climb up on a table, and, gathering a crowd around him, excite it by the most violent language, which was never punished, for the multitude reigned. 

Men thought to be devoted to the Duke of Orleans were the most ardent... ." 

-- History of the French Revolution by Adolphe Thiers, 1854 (in French)

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The phrase "Let them eat cake" was invented there as were

violent, often pornographic images against the monarchy.

Some of the milder ones:

    This and the next two images are from the web, without sources.

"Live free or die" 

"The aristocratic hydra:" Its heads are cut off. 

"The two are one:"

Louis wears a cuckold's horns and snakes spring from Marie Antoinette's coiffure.

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The Revolution began when a young lawyer jumped up on a table and made the first call to arms: At a time of extreme tension* the crowd thought 30,000 soldiers called to Versailles to maintain order in Paris had come to massacre. It rushed off to find muskets and two days later stormed the Bastille.

*For the underlying situation, please click.

The video begins with scenes of the activity at Palais-Royal: please click. The site was the Café de Foy, where the the cheapest ice cream brought the greatest crowds. 

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Sic transit. 

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Another way to recall the past