October 6: Louis XVI and his family were forced to leave the Palace of Versailles by a mass demonstration of women who went to Versailles to force him to govern from Paris, in 1789.

An illustration of the Women's March on Versailles, 5 October 1789.  Louis XVI had to agree to accompany them back to Paris.

Only a new popular uprising could force the king to accept changes to the French political system, and this actually occurred, spurred by food shortages and rising prices.

The women hailed by onlookers on their way to Versailles: The March of Women to Versailles on the 5th and 6th of October 1789.

Scarcity of bread caused high prices by the chronic shortage of food which was the spark the started the French Revolution. Angry women gathered in the market place known as the Faubourg Saint-Antoine and forced a nearby church to toll its bells continuously.

On October 5, 1789, a crowd of about six thousand women from different social classes: workers, shopkeepers, prostitutes and housewives went to the Palace of Versailles, armed with sticks, spears, and even pistols and muskets, in order to protest to the king to administer the nation from Paris.

The angry attack on Hotel de Ville in Paris, 5 October 1789. The Women's March on Versailles.

The King of France was forced to move to the Tuileries Palace in Paris, and had to accept the Declaration of Rights of Man and of the Citizen, and decrees affecting the Catholic Church ten days later. The French Revolution was consolidated.