Global Encounters and the Archives: Britain’s Empire in the Age of Horace Walpole

Women's March on Versailles, 1790

Britain's triumph over France in the Seven Years' War intensified many of the factors that produced the French Revolution in 1789. This item refers to an event that took place on October 5, 1789, when an angry mob of nearly 7,000 working women –armed with pitchforks, pikes, and muskets –marched in the rain from Paris to Versailles. These women demanded that King Louis XVI distribute the bread that the palace had hoarded, sanction the August Decrees and the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, and accompany them back to Paris to see for himself the plight of his subjects. Louis and Marie Antoinette became prisoners of the Third Estate the very next day, solidifying women's distinctive contributions to the intensifying French Revolution. The page on view here is an excerpt from the author's recounting of the opinion of the député de la commune, a local government official, who was dubious about the aims and motivations of the revolutionaries. He argued that while the people claimed to be fighting for liberty and against corruption, they, just like the "Machiavélistes at Court," exchanged their honor for power. Driven solely by hate, he claimed, they sought only to defeat their rivals with no regard to moderation, tolerance, or the intricacies of domestic and international politics. This was more or less in line with an imperial, and state-sympathetic, diagnosis of the French Revolution. Catalog Record

Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University Library

Bound Manuscript Collection This collection includes over 300 volumes of a diverse set of material relating to political, religious, literary and domestic life in the eighteenth-century British world. Extent: over 300 volumes Summary: This extensive and diverse collection of bound manuscripts both supplements the other manuscript collections highlighted in this exhibition, but also stands as a largely untapped and robust resource for any scholar studying eighteenth-century Britain and her Empire. It includes several diaries and commonplace books of prominent political and religious figures, travel journals, account books, autograph books, engravings and religious writings. In addition, the bound manuscripts collection contains more ephemeral items such as recipe books, newspaper clippings, broadsides, songbooks, tickets and much more that offer a glimpse into daily and domestic life. This vast collection is an incredibly rich trove of material that mirrors eighteenth-century society in full, offering insight into anything from high philosophical and political debates to concerns and daily life of the family. Whether consulted in tandem with other collections or on its own, this collection promises to be invaluable for any scholar of the eighteenth-century British world.