The only troops immediately available for the…
October 1789 CE
Both units are primarily ceremonial and lack the numbers and training to provide effective protection for the royal family and the government.
Accordingly, the Flanders Regiment (a regular infantry regiment of the Royal Army) had been ordered to Versailles in late September 1789 by the king's minister of war, the Comte de Saint-Priest, as a precautionary measure.
On October 1, the officers at Versailles hold a welcoming banquet for the officers of the new troops, a customary practice when a unit changes its garrison.
The royal family briefly attends the affair, walking among the tables set up in the opera house of the palace.
Outside, in the cour de marbre (central courtyard), the soldiers' toasts and oaths of fealty to the king grow more demonstrative as the night wears on.
The lavish banquet is certain to be an affront to those suffering in a time of severe austerity, but it is reported in the L'Ami du peuple and other firebrand newspapers as nothing short of a gluttonous orgy.
Worst of all, the papers all dwell scornfully on the reputed desecration of the tricolor cockade; drunken officers are said to have stamped upon this symbol of the nation and professed their allegiance solely to the white cockade of the House of Bourbon.
This embellished tale of the royal banquet becomes the source of intense public outrage.