Third Estate – Ingliando

On this day, less than three months after the Storming of the Bastille, in the marketplaces of Paris where food shortages and the price of bread had become intolerable, the women of the French capital rose up in a massive rebellion. Instantly encouraged by revolutionary agitators seeking liberal political reforms and a constitutional monarchy for France, the swelling crowd, set out on a six-hour march to Versailles where they besieged the Palace and pressed their demands on King Louis XVI. Forced to return to Paris with his family, the king’s independence was effectively brought to an end. The event heralded a new balance of power that would ultimately displace the established, privileged orders of the French nobility in favour of the common people, collectively known as the Third Estate. By bringing together people representing the sources of the Revolution in such large numbers, the march on Versailles proved to be a defining moment of the French Revolution.