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On the morning of October 5, 1789, a large group of women in a Paris marketplace began to revolt. They wanted to buy bread for their families. They began to march through Paris demanding bread at a fair price. As they marched, more people joined the group and soon there were thousands of marchers. The crowd first took over the Hotel de Ville in Paris (sort of like a city hall) where they were able to get some bread as well as weapons. Revolutionaries in the crowd suggested they head to the palace in Versailles and confront King Louis XVI. They marchers called the king the "Baker" and the queen the "Baker's wife." This march was is now known as the “Women’s march on Versailles”. The king and his family were marched to Paris, to live in the Tuileries Palace in Paris. This was because the revolutionaries thought that they could keep a better eye on him. Most people didn't despise the king per se, but most absolutely hated the Ancien Regime. The revolutionaries thought that they could bring the king round to support the revolution. In 1791, Louis XVI and his family attempted to flee from Paris to a town in north-eastern France called Montmedy. It was a royalist town that was well protected. He was spotted before he could get there, however, and taken back to Paris. The people suddenly hated him for this. It was seen as a betrayal of the revolution, and people no longer thought that he could be part of revolutionary France. The republicanism (belief in the abolition of the monarchy) that was once confined to the coffee houses suddenly became very mainstream indeed. In 1792 the Duke of Brunswick invaded France to restore Louis (the other European monarchs not being too pleased with the goings-on in France), and he issued the Brunswick Manifesto, which declared that the Austrians and Prussians were going to restore Louis to his full powers. This had the effect of infuriating the French populace and was the final nail in the coffin - this was the final proof that Louis was a traitor and was negotiating with foreign invaders to restore himself. The armed mob, infuriated, besieged the Tuileries Palace where he was staying. He and his family took shelter in the Legislative Assembly. Louis was arrested on 13 August 1792. On the 21 September of the same year, the National Assembly declared France a Republic. He was subsequently put on trial, and on 15 January 1793, was found guilty of high treason and crimes against the State. On January 21st, Louis XVI, the last absolutist king of France, awoke before dawn and received mass from a non-juring priest. He boarded a carriage and was taken on a circuitous route through Paris, through streets lined with soldiers. Source A. The execution was attended by a crowd exceeding 100,000, so numerous reports of the king’s demise exist. This one comes from a royalist named Bernard, who described the events of January 21st in a letter to his mother: “[The king] wished to speak to the people from the scaffold but was interrupted by a drum roll and was seized by the executioners, who pushed him straight under the fatal blade. He was only able to say these words in a strong voice: ‘I forgive my enemies. I trust that my death will be for the happiness of my people, but I grieve for France and I fear she may suffer the anger of the Lord’. The king took off his coat at the foot of the scaffold. When someone sought to help him, he said cheerfully ‘I do not need any help’... On the scaffold, the executioner tied his hands behind his back and then cut his hair. After his death, his body and head were taken to the parish cemetery and thrown into a pit 15 feet deep, where they were consumed with quicklime.”