The Women's March on Versailles, also known as The October March, The October Days, or simply The March on Versailles, is one of the earliest and most significant events of the French Revolution.

The march begins among women in the marketplaces of Paris who, on the morning of October 5, 1789, are near rioting over the high price and scarcity of bread.

Their demonstrations quickly become intertwined with the activities of revolutionaries, who sre seeking liberal political reforms and a constitutional monarchy for France.

The market women and their various allies grow into a mob of thousands.

Encouraged by revolutionary agitators, they ransack the city armory for weapons and march to the Palace of Versailles.

The crowd besieges the palace, and in a dramatic and violent confrontation, they successfully press their demands upon King Louis XVI.

The next day, the crowd compes the king, his family, and most of the French Assembly to return with them to Paris.

These events end the king's independence and signify the change of power and reforms about to overtake France.

The march symbolizes a new balance of power that displaces the ancient privileged orders of the French nobility and favors the nation's common people, collectively termed the Third Estate.

Bringing together people representing sources of the Revolution in their largest numbers yet, the march on Versailles proves to be a defining moment of that Revolution.