The march was organized by Parisian women who were frustrated by the high price of bread and the scarcity of food in the capital.
Several events coincided and amplified the tensions that led to the march:
- The economic crisis: Poor grain harvests in 1788 and early 1789 as well as market speculations led to serious shortage of bread and flour in the capital. The rise in the price of bread put it out of the reach of many Parisians.
- The rumors about the royal family: Pamphlets and newspapers were increasingly spreading negative rumors about the opulence and lack of concern for the people at the Palace of Versailles, such as the exorbitant banquet thrown by the king's bodyguard while many Parisians were starving.
- The call to arms: Following the Storming of the Bastille (14 July 1789), people across the country were forging militias to defend their newly proclaimed civil rights. In September 1789, the 5,000 to 6,000 militiamen from the District of Saint-Honoré demanded guns from the Hôtel de Ville.
The direct trigger was the banquet held at the Palace of Versailles on 1 October, where the king's bodyguard toasted to the queen and trampled underfoot the tricolor cockade, the symbol of the Revolution.
On the morning of 5 October, a march of armed and unarmed Parisians, mostly women, assembled at the Place de la Concorde and the Palais-Royal. Some marchers intended to ask for bread and to appeal to the King to live closer to Paris and to sanction the recent decrees of the National Assembly, while others wished to bring the king back to Paris as a hostage.
By the afternoon, about 6,000 people were marching. They stopped at the Hôtel de Ville, the provisional seat of the revolutionary municipality of Paris, where they picked up cannon and supplies.
The protest grew in size and chaos over the course of the day, and as night fell, the crowd attacked the Palace of Versailles.
When the crowd broke into the palace, most of the royal life guards deserted, and Louis XVI agreed to return to Paris with his family the next day.
King Louis XVI, his family and the National assembly moved from Versailles to the Tuileries palace in Paris on October 6.
This event effectively marked the end of royal supremacy and the beginning of republican rule in France.
The march played an important role in shaping the course of the French Revolution, and is considered one of the most significant events in French history.