Маршал Ляфайет предотвратил мятеж гвардейцев и мирно направил женщин к Версалю в 1789 году

Submitted by Richard Ingram, a longtime resident of LaGrange and Chair of Friends of Lafayette. New Yorker art Critic Zachary Fine, commenting on the Raphael exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum, “Raphael: Sublime Poetry,” consisting of 237 works, 175 by Raphael’s own hand, five of which are Masterpiece Society Portraits on display in the center octagon, recommends “an hour concentrated with the portraits is worth more than an hour spread thinly across the rest of the exhibition.” Likewise, frames in a life can offer insightful views of the whole. For Lafayette, “The Women’s March to Versailles,” was one such frame. On Monday, October 5, 1789, at 9 AM, Lafayette, thirty-two-year-old commandant of the Paris National Guard, opened his front door at 183 Rue de Bourbon to greet Moreau de Saint-Mery, President of the Paris Assembly of Representatives. The news was menacing. Finding no bread on bakery shelves and cupboards at home already bare, a crowd of angry women swelled by 9 AM into a threatening mob on the Place de Greve in front of Hotel de Ville (city hall), demanding somebody be lynched. The tocsin of alarm, sounded from the belfry of Hotel de Ville, served only to attract more of the disgruntled, especially intriguers dissatisfied with King Louis XVI’s refusal to sanction the Declaration of Rights and the new constitution; these intriguers could hijack the power of the mob to their own purpose. Hijackers were more hostile and many of them were armed, although the women were far from meek, having commandeered muskets and a couple cannons. Impatient, the mob set out for Versailles, twelve miles west, intent on bringing the King back to Paris and forcing on him their demand for bread and political reform. The National Guard offered no resistance; they were, in fact, sympathetic. It took two hours to wade through throngs of protesters, but Lafayette arrived at Hotel de Ville at 11 AM, went directly to the Police Committee Room where, in conference with a half-dozen representatives, he dispatched an armed guard to fetch Mayor Bailly, and he designated Representative Claude-Toussaint Fissour to deliver to the National Assembly and to the King’s Ministers at Versailles word of the oncoming mob. Lafayette exhibited calm decisiveness and thoughtful deliberation. A group of grenadiers (the hand-chosen elite of the Paris National Guard), led by articulate Lieutenant Mercier, presented at the committee room door, respectfully but firmly asking to speak with Lafayette, whom they trusted. Mercier had something important to say. Lafayette listened. The National Guard, said Mercier, wanted to accompany the women to Versailles. The King should address hunger; he should confirm the Declaration of Rights and the new constitution; and he should return to Paris. Besides, as a matter of regimental pride it ought to be, Mercier continued, the National Guard which protects the King, not the King’s Bodyguards, and certainly not the royalist Flanders Regiment, both of whom desecrate the tricolor cockade and the idea of liberty. The grenadiers will go to Versailles, he said, with or without Lafayette’s approval. Without approval, this was mutiny. It was a pivotal moment. For three months, since the burning of the Bastille, when he was named commandant, Lafayette had been organizing and training the National Guard. Mutiny would destroy it all, to say nothing of endangering his own life. Lafayette showed extraordinary self-possession. No arrogance, no tantrums. Observers commented on “his gentleness and his eloquence,” his “admirable calm.” After give and take for an hour, he and Mercier went out to talk with the grenadiers and other Guardsmen. Lafayette re-entered the Hotel de Ville, gave an order for 12000 Guardsmen to scour the countryside for wheat, to have it threshed and baked into bread, and distributed. He exited the Hotel de Ville, onto his white stallion to ride through the ranks, polling sentiment, quickly concluding a plan. He had been hesitant for the women to march on Versailles, concerned that the King’s Bodyguards and the Flanders Regiment would open fire on a surly mob; that the Guardsmen who followed the women to Versailles and were sympathetic would turn defense into a bloodbath which the King and the King’s ministers would take as pretext to reject the Declaration of Rights and the new constitution. Having thought it through, Lafayette asked the Assembly of Representatives to pass a resolution authorizing the Guard to go to Versailles, to accompany the women. This, he argued, would maintain civil authority; preserve military decorum, avert mutiny; and assert his own influence as commandant to preserve order. At 5 PM he ordered the Guard to march to Versailles. They numbered 20000 men. The train of events proved Lafayette’s patience prescient. He sent a message to his wife Adrienne not to worry. The Flanders Regiment sent word to Lafayette that they would be under his command. The King ordered his Bodyguards not to fire on the mob, and sent word to Lafayette that he, the King, accepted the Declaration of Rights and the new constitution. At Montreuil, one hour outside Versailles, Lafayette had his men march six abreast and at double time. Along with two Paris Representatives, Broussais de la Grey and Louis Lefevre, Lafayette entered the Hotel des Menus Plaisirs to pay his respects to the National Assembly. It was midnight. No one was killed. The Women’s March to Versailles was over. Mostly.