The Reign of Terror 1793–1794: Leading the Angry Mob and Murdering Political Rivals. Part 4: Les Journées D’Octobre
The tocsin rang loud and clear throughout the Parisian districts on the 5 October morning in 1789. Decorated with the tricolor revolutionary cockade, Parisian women first gathered at local markets eventually joining as a single mob. Growing in numbers and momentum with a “carnival-like atmosphere” (Tackett and Strick 2015, 66), the angry mob of women marched to Versailles. Carrying daggers, clubs, muskets, makeshift weapons, and dragging a single cannon for twelve and a half miles, the over 7,000 strong angry mob finally reached Versailles and demanded an audience with the king. Out of fear, the women changed the Revolution dramatically and irreversibly. Without women, a constitutional monarchy was still a possibility; an ancien regime revival was still a possibility; and the execution of revolutionaries for treason was still a possibility. With constant bread shortages, the exasperated Parisian women decided not to wait for the men in the Assembly but take matters into their own hands and brought the King back to Paris under watch, which historians label this incident the October Days or the Women’s March on Versailles.
By mid-September, a journal called Ami du Peuple (People’s Friend) grew in popularity and most certainly in outrage. Its author was nonother than the infamous Parisian who commanded and manipulated the angry mob: Jean-Paul Marat. Due to printing technology during the late 18th century, publications maxed at 6,000 copies per day from three print shops, yet after public readings and secondhand viewings, Ami du Peuple reached roughly 60,000 per day (Conner 2012, 41). In early October, rumor spread that the King and his nobles held a banquet celebrating the gardes du corps (the King’s guards) while stomping and trampling on the tricolor cockade which represented the Revolution. It was Marat who spurred on the angry mob to bring the King from Versailles and answer for his disrespect and despotism, which author Clifford Conner (2012, 50–51) writes, “Marat exhorted his readers to rise up in arms, march on Versailles, and compel the King and his family to leave that ‘nest of intrigue’ and permanently establish their residence in Paris. That call appeared in Ami du peuple on the morning of October 5; later that same day the people responded in force.” Most journals during this time merely reported or satirized current events, yet Marat, now known as l’Ami du peuple (the people’s friend), separated himself from others with calls to action and villainizing anyone who did not put the urban poor first. Initially Marat consistently attacked the monarchy, but then moved on to villainize a new political group: the right-wingers.
Following the approval of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen in August 1789, the National Assembly’s next step was to construct and ratify a constitution. Naturally, beliefs and agendas divided into political spectrums. Over time those who held conservative ideologies, favored the ancient regime, and preferred the King have absolute veto authority in this new constitutional monarchy sat on the right side (mostly clergy and former nobility), while those who favored liberalism and égalité, and preferred the King have no absolute veto authority sat on the left side during Assembly meetings (mostly bourgeoisie). Over the course of the Revolution epithets such as “right-winger” or “left-winger” often described ideologies, while during the Reign of Terror those labeled “right-winger” among other contemptuous sobriquets were sent to the guillotine. From this moment in history, conservatives are associated with the political right and liberals with the political left. Many countries did not adopt this formula overnight, but it gradually solidified by the early 20th century. Yet, during this moment in the Revolution’s progress very few held the far left and radical belief of a kingless republic. Even Jean-Paul Marat at this time still believed a constitutional monarchy was the best choice for France (Conner 2012, 43).
One group that still felt ignored and unheard was the urban woman as they often criticized the government’s inability to solve the grain and bread price issue. While the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen made tremendous progress for society on one end of the spectrum (men), the other end launched the most bloodthirsty and ruthless people during the Revolution (women). The urban woman represented the direst circumstances and when the men in the National Assembly did not solve the most prominent problem (grain prices and scarcity), it was the urban woman who did it for them. Women faced both social and economic inequalities whether as a single worker or the wife and mother of a household. Men during this time depended on their occupation to determine their social status, which in turn represented the wife’s status. Often referred to as the merchant’s wife or the baker’s wife, women’s social status depended upon the occupation of men. Because society emphasized the man’s occupation and social position, “social pressure directed women’s attention and energy towards marriage and family” (Garrioch 1999, 236). Single women faced far more difficulties in the workforce, whether as a seamstress, laundress, hairdresser, or domestic servant, job security remained very low. Most women found job security working for their own family while awaiting marriage opportunities. Unfortunately, some women were not afforded the luxury that a familial support system offered and could only find work in prostitution. Instinctively, when enlightened ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity, spread like wildfire, the deprived urban woman demanded her fair share.
Naturally, when grain prices soared, bread became scarce within the city, and men were unable to solve the issue, the only thing left was for women to take up arms and act. According to Melzer and Rabine (1993, 83), “trouble started when a young market woman began beating a drum in the streets and crying about the scarcity of bread.” Finally reaching Versailles and holding the king hostage on the night of 5 October, women began to rush and swarm into the National Assembly and commandeered legislative discussions and debates. Completely surprised, the Assembly deputies could not contain the angry women which Melzer and Rabine (1993, 84–85) describe “such role reversals can be read as the women’s symbolic seizure of power from deputies whom they perceive to be either incapable of representing them, or unwilling to do so.” The Revolution is sometimes criticized as a bourgeoisie revolution because the rich bourgeoisie benefited from the nobilities fall from power, and the bourgeoisie dominated the bulk of the representation from the “old” Third Estate. These bourgeoise men made it very apparent that the urban poor and especially the urban poor women were not included in what they considered égalité. Finally, on 6 October, the women marched the King back to Paris, where he remained till his execution in 1793. Without women, there was a probability that France would return to its former state with even worse subjugation. Yet, because of women, the Revolution took a dramatic turn and the idea that France could function as a kingless republic seemed even more plausible. By bringing the King back to Paris, this established the notion that the King must capitulate to the people’s interests as well as solidified the angry mob as a legitimate force in times when true action was needed. Following the October Days, men continued efforts to subdue the voices and needs of women, further emboldening women as a dominant wrathful and vengeful voice, which made the Reign of Terror in 1793 appear reasonable and necessary.
References
Conner, Clifford D. 2012. Jean Paul Marat: Tribune of the French Revolution. New York: Pluto Press.
Garrioch, David. 1999. “The Everyday Lives of Parisian Women and the October Days of 1789.” Social History 24, no. 3 (October): 231–49.
Melzer, Sara E., and Leslie W. Rabine. 1993. Rebel Daughters Women and the French Revolution. New York: Oxford University Press.
