The Insurrection of October, 1789 57 



accusations they uttered, all the demands they made had first 

 found expression in the press." 1 



This insurrection, then, was not an unpremeditated outburst 

 of lawlessness, "entirely unforeseen and spontaneous." It was 

 rather foretold and prearranged and carried out with the fixed 

 and conscious purpose of bringing the king to Paris. 'This was 

 what the papers had been preaching as necessary to the success 

 of the revolution. This was the required remedy for all distress 

 of body or mind. If bread was lacking, the king's presence 

 would bring plenty. If the aristocrats were plotting against the 

 public welfare, their plots would fall harmless if once the king 

 were removed from their influence. From the beginning of the 

 agitation, the chief thought of the insurgents was that they must 

 bring the king to Paris at any cost. We have seen how the 

 women at the Palais Royal announced on the 4th of October 

 their plan of going to Versailles the next day "to seek the king 

 and to bring him to the Louvre." The women who went to the 

 Hotel de Ville to demand bread, as well as the men who followed 

 them, were all determined to march to Versailles and bring back 

 the king. 2 



One of the demands of the commune, sent by the delegation 

 which accompanied Lafayette, was to this same effect. "The 

 king would give a great proof of his love for the French nation 

 if he would dwell in the finest palace in Europe, in the greatest 

 city of his realm, and among the most numerous part of his sub- 

 jects." The French guards were represented in another demand 

 of the commune: that "His Majesty would confide the guard of 

 his sacred person only to the national guards of Paris and of 

 Versailles." According to Mathiez, who refers to the Procedure 

 dn chdtelet for evidence, the French guards had won over the 

 regiment of Flanders to the popular cause, and had received the 

 assurance from this regiment that it would take no part against 

 the nation in the proposed movement. 3 



1 Revue historique , LXIX, 41, 42. 



2 Ibid., 44; Deux amis de la liberty, Histoire de la revolution de France, 

 III, 175. 



3 Revue historique, LXVIII, 294. 



323 



