This case study looks at the march of the Paris women to Versailles in October
1789
as a paradigmatic point in the history of demonstration. The march of the market
women is also an expression of their long tradition of political participation as
members of a corporative estate as well as of the experience of loss of power. The
focus is above all on the dialectics of disenfranchisement and traditional rights and
on the thus implied question of the limitations of δῆμος, the politically constituted
people. Starting from a visual source and the featured demonstrative dimension
of the procession
the constitutional history of demonstration is given a different
perspective from literature based mainly on written testimonials.