To Versailles! To Versailles!

Punch Magazine published its first edition on 17th July, 1841. Subtitled ‘the London Charivari’, the weekly periodical aimed to carve a niche in the market with less crude and bawdy satire compared to its contemporaries. Its early days were challenging, with poor circulation and ...  Show more

Kissing was a big deal in the Middle Ages: for signing contracts, for greeting colleagues, and for showing deference to the King - a tradition that ended on 16th July, 1439, when Henry VI issued a decree imploring his citizens to stop kissing his ring. Some 400 years before the m ...  Show more

In 1789, a group of protesters -- mostly women -- marched from Paris to Versailles to pressure King Louis XVI to address France's food shortage.

This 2017 episode covers the moment in 1789 when a group of protesters -- mostly women -- marched from Paris to Versailles to pressure King Louis XVI to address France's food shortage.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. 

Welcome to Season 2 of The French Revolution! Revolutionary fervour threatens to engulf the streets of Paris, as demonstrators have gathered on the Champ de Mars to sign a petition demanding the removal of the King. Two days prior, the National Assembly had decreed that Louis XV ...  Show more

By the summer of 1789 the different sections of the Revolution were at loggerheads, and the recently created National Assembly riven in two. Both factions, the radicals on the left and the more moderate revolutionaries on the right, upheld different interpretations of how the new ...  Show more