by Jean-Jacques COURTEY, Doctor in Economic Geography, Ph. D
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With high inflation due partly to the War in Ukraine and its consequences on the prices of Energy and Cereals, present time is strangely reconnected to a past concern in France among others : the price of flour and bread, a bit like at the time of the "baker, the female-baker and the little mitron" (Louis XVI, Marie-Antoinette and the Dolphin) in 1789 !
The parallel is too striking not to be stressed. That's why today we are going to narrate the events of October 5th and 6th, 1789 in Versailles. And in order to do that, our best reporter is certainly the Baron Jean de Batz (1754 - 1822). At that time, he was a MP in the Constituant National Assembly in the Castle of Versailles, which would make him a perfect special envoy !
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It's a bit different to what you have learnt at school, if you learnt it. And it's not as simple as bread and Parisian women anger. But it is following accurately the accusations against Philip, Duke of Orleans (1743 - 1793) ), cousin of the King Louis XVI (1754 - 1793 ?), the Marquis de La Fayette (1757 - 1834), and ..."Madame Beauprez", the angry leader of Parisian "women" (not at all an hungry poor Parisian woman in fact) by the same Baron in the Court of Châtelet - Paris - which ensued, with no noticeable follow-up. The retarded involvement of La Fayette as Chief of the National Guard, showed he was behaving as a kind of unofficial "Prime Minister" deciding everything, and not just tempo !
If the first two characters are very famous, it's extremely rare to find someone having heard of the female-leader's name of angry Parisian "women" against King Louis XVI and Queen Marie-Antoinette (1755 - 1793 or 1834 ?) in Versailles, as mentioned above. In reality, a lot of those "women" were just men dressed in women in fast-moving. It's "Madame Beauprez" who admitted in front of the Baron de Batz, that she had been paid by Philip of Orleans to organize this "carnival" March on Versailles. Actually, he witnessed the two of them talking on the way to Versailles, before her final arrival. Just like he saw equally Philip speaking with Lafayette, to ask him not to intervene immediately on October 5th, 1789 to stop this violent march of heckling on Versailles !
Without the remarkable courage of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette, a drama could have easily happened to them on that day. And when he decided at last to finally arrive on October 5th, 1789 around midnight, La Fayette told the King he had to follow those "women" to Paris with his family. With his numerous troops, he decided he couldn't do much to maintain order...which wasn't true at all according to Jean de Batz on site. General La Fayette had showed in America that he was able to energically intervene to change an apparently lost situation (Battle of the River Brandywine in Philadelphia area where he was injured - September 11th, 1777), if he wanted to do it ! But he had personal grudges against the Queen, who once laughed at him during a ball as a bad dancer. Above that, she was finding him "moche" in French (ugly in English), which he couldn't stand !
Thus, at the issue of those two fateful days, the Royal Family was obliged, more by La Fayette than really by the angry Parisian "Women" led by Madame Beauprez (Madame Girard from her real name, according to the Baron de Batz), to leave Versailles for Paris (Tuileries). It's him who tipped the scales against them : our special envoy insisted on that point. In France, political exaggerated mess is often a sneaky way to hide an inexorable agenda. And it was the real beginning of the end for them. Conforming with the Baron de Batz, the plan of Philip of Orleans (who nicknamed himself "Philip Equality") was initially to make killed by the crowd the Royal Family, as La Fayette didn't come with his troops of the National Guard as soon as he could have done it. But, this at least totally failed, due to the very courageous reactions of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette ! They even recognized the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen of August 26th, 1789 on this occasion, which calmed a bit the crowd totally surprised !
Madame Beauprez (Girard) wasn't a poor Parisian woman, but a well off "bourgeoise" of Paris in reality. She was even boasting to be rich and well introduced in the circle of the Duke of Orleans. She could pay easily for her bread, and she didn't lack anything in fact ! She was just bought by Philip Equality to organize the March of "Women" for bread on Versailles, with the bloody riot and the massacre of Swiss guards which ensued. It must be added that Philip Equality had diverted a large stock of flour to provoke this artificial crisis against his hated cousin. It was the logic following of the call for Revolution which had started beside his home in Palais Royal on July 12th, 1789, and had preceded the famous Bastille Storming on July 14th, 1789. The Duke of Orleans is the one who had triggered the Revolution from Palais Royal in Paris on the fateful day of July 12th, 1789 under the pretext of the dismissal of Necker (1732 - 1804) by the King. He thought he could use his fellow men like Camille Desmoulins (1760 - 1794) and others, as well as Illuminism to provoke a dynastic change at his profit !
Philip Equality is the one who had organized the days of October 5th and 6th, 1789, with "Madame Beauprez" to harm the Royal family in Versailles or to bring it back to Paris. He is also the one who had the idea of emprisoning his cousin, Louis XVI and his family in the Temple's dungeon on August 13th, 1792, by using the story of a "Templar revenge" against the Capetians coming from the XIVth century ! But he had forgotten he was himself too a very indirect Capetian, connected to the Iron King, Philip IV the Fair (1268 - 1314). And the "monster" he had-even of many contributed to create just devoured him on November 6th, 1793, when he was himself guillotined. It was just three weeks after the execution of Queen Marie-Antoinette or of her Double, Cornélia de Galéan (October 16th, 1793) ; and it was less than 10 months after the one of King Louis XVI or of his Belgian Double, a Monk (January 21st, 1793), with the strange episodes of the 52 rue Beauregard and of the very proximate 95 rue de Cléry in Paris. In both cases, an overlooked doubt is coming from the Impossible Missions of rescue led by Jean de Batz, the daredevil Baron (Carnation Counter-Operation of the Conciergerie Jail in the night of August 30th, 1793, preceded by the intervention of the Last Chance on the cold morning of January 21st, 1793) !
Philip-Equality could never take the coveted place of his cousin Louis XVI, never ! And it is absolutely astonishing that until now no cineast in France had made any known movie about the Baron Jean de Batz. His subsequent and successful interactions with the Revolution and its various factions for the actual recognition of basic human rights, were due to the inner revolt he felt during the days of October 5th and 6th, 1789. He systematically acted thereafter on the same disruptive mode as his enemies (from the shadow). Perhaps an American cineast could make a blockbuster about him, on the "Impossible Mission" mode ?
However, more and more people want to know precisely the hidden structure of the Revolution, and why it went so wrong. They feel very confused about this topic they have learnt at school, without really understanding what it changed between the Rich bourgeois and the Poor wretch, or between the Powerful and the Weak. It's even a special concern for the jaded and wary people of suburbs and elsewhere, who dare to demand today its promises to be true and tangible. They do not allow themselves to be told. And yet they are not usually accounted among the "new Chouans" !
Of course, they don't realize the Equality promised in 1789 was very quickly set aside by new revolutionary rules of the triumphant bourgeoisie, depriving several million men of the lower people of the right to vote. In a way, it wasn't really contradictive with the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, which was stressing that "Social distinctions can only be founded on common utility" (second part of article 1). And that's probably the reason why people didn't pay enough attention to this legal bias : an astute intellectual pirouette establishing an intermediary system succeeding to the abolished Feudality... returning today in a new form !
A Censitary Vote for men above 25 was thus established by the Constitution of September 3rd, 1791, between other conditions excluding people in a state of domesticity from citzenship. This was just following the abolition of the ancient pre-revolutionary rights of Strike and Coalition by the "Law Le Chapelier" of June 14th, 1791 ! And concerning the liberated Peasants, it must be added that those ones had to buy back feudal rights to their lords (till 1793) under the Decree of July 3rd, 1790 : the latter was taken in application of the famous and partly misunderstood law of August 4th, 1789, which had abolished those rights under this condition justly. Revolution was founded on the idea of Fundamental Change, even there was from the beginning a confusion between the concept and its actual concretization !
In parallel, millions of women about them wouldn't be recognized any right to vote before the Liberation in 1944, by General de Gaulle (1890 - 1970) as a reward for their engagement and braveness to free France. To fill this legal void, the actress and writer Olympe de Gouges (1748 - 1793) had yet written a Declaration of the Rights of Woman and Citizen (September 14th, 1791), which was addressed to Queen Marie-Antoinette, as the wife of King Louis XVI (the man who had freed her swiftly from La Bastille in 1785, and her truly beloved King). Marie-Antoinette talked a lot about it with her husband, and both of them accepted this unusual Declaration of Rights (also providing for the Freedom of the French colonies' Slaves) with grace. But, it wasn't at all the case of the Jacobins, who sharply rejected it, like Robespierre (1758 - 1794), her deadliest enemy ! And unhappily, in 2014 she was ultimately denied the honour of entering the Pantheon in Paris for unclear reasons, which seemed ideologically keen on her excessive feminine sensitivity towards the King, despite the very long lapse of time !
Presently, even if People are directly concerned by the complex and tangled pension reform ongoing, they are not aware that the very first special schemes (Marine, Public Works, French Comedy, Opera, Civil Servants, and Army) created between 1673 and 1709 by King Louis XIV (1638 - 1715), should nevertheless be kept ! It would not affect much either the De Castries ordinance signed by King Louis XVI in 1784, instauring the definitive system of invalidity and old age pensions for the merchant marine and sailors in general. And there is a strange historical paradox concerning that, when people usually think they are owing everything to the Great Revolution !
In fact, you are obliged to recognize that the act of creation nowadays, for a movie for instance, necessitates a certain amount of boldness and clarity. To be really committed implies a minimum of risk-taking and not to break down already open doors ! It's true it's not easy to keep a free and unformatted mind. It's far easier to be a non-individual by blindly following the collective mind like a mutton...and still miss the chance of your life ! That's why you will count on only one hand the very minute number of people able to do it. Nowadays, you can find easily many people showing off for their selfies or for the planet (as an abstraction submitted to the New dominant Green Capitalism and to the concealed war of hyper-polluting rare-earths), but almost nobody for such audacity. Daredevil is just an almost forgotten hero of Marvel !
