Day of Daggers
| Day of Daggers | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of French Revolution | ||||||
 The disarming of the nobles in the Tuileries Palace on 28 February 1791 |
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| Belligerents | ||||||
| National Guard | Workmen from Faubourg Saint-Antoine | chevaliers du poignard | ||||
| Commanders and leaders | ||||||
| Marquis de Lafayette | Antoine Joseph Santerre | |||||
On the Day of Daggers, 28 February 1791, hundreds of nobles with concealed weapons, such as daggers, went to the Tuileries Palace in Paris to defend King Louis XVI while Marquis de Lafayette and the National Guard were in Vincennes stopping a riot. A confrontation between the guards and nobles started as the guards thought the nobles came to take the King away. The nobles were finally ordered to relinquish their weapons by the King and they were forcibly removed from the palace.
Starting in the later half of 1789, riots became a common occurrence in Paris. The Parisian inhabitants expressed their discontent with the National Assembly or an act it created by taking to the streets and causing a violent commotion. The violence in Paris resulted in an increasing number of members of the nobility to emigrate from Paris to seek foreign aid or cause insurrection in the provinces to the south.French Emigration (1789-1815) was a mass movement of thousands of frenchmen spanning various socioeconomic classes although it did begin with primarily a migration of members of the first and second estates, the clergy and the nobility. The violence in Paris was an immediate reason for their leaving the vicinity, but the reason was that they fundamentally disagreed with the elimination of the old order which offered privilege to which the nobility had grown accustomed.
Among the emigrating nobles were the aunts of King Louis XVI: Madame Adélaïde and Madame Victoire. The Madames believed it their duty to seek safety near the pope and on 19 February 1791 they set off on a pilgrimage to Rome. However they were stopped by the municipality of Arnay le Duc. The National Assembly held a prolonged debate over the departure of the Madames that was only ended by the statesman Jacques-François de Menou joking about the Assembly's preoccupation with the actions of "two old women". The Madames were then permitted to continue their trip.
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