A Year: Day to Day Men: 7th of June
The Toss of a Shirt
The Day of the Tiles occurs on June 7, 1788 in the town of Grenoble, France.
Grenoble was the scene of popular unrest due to financial hardship from the economic crises. The causes of the French Revolution affected all of France, but matters came to a head first in Grenoble. Cardinal Étienne Charles de Loménie de Brienne attempted to abolish the provincial appellate courts in order to enact a new tax upon the people. Tensions caused by poor harvests and high costs of food increased when the privileged classes insisted on retaining the right to collect feudal royalties from their peasants and landholders.
A meeting was held prior to the 7th of June in 1788 calling together at Grenoble the judges of the old Estates to discuss reforms. The government responded by sending troops to the area to put down the movement. In the morning of June 7th, merchants closed their shops; groups of 300-400 men and women formed, armed with stones, sticks and axes. They rushed the city gates to prevent the judges at the Grenoble meeting from leaving the city. The cathedral was seized and the bells rung, calling neighboring peasants into the city.
The Regiment of the Royal Navy was the first to respond to the growing crowds, and was given the order to quell the rioting without the use of arms. However, as the mob stormed the hotel entrance, the situation escalated. Soldiers sent to quell the disturbances forced the townspeople off the streets. During an attack, Royal Navy soldiers injured a 75 year old man with a bayonet.
At the sight of blood, the people became angry and started to tear up the streets. Townspeople climbed onto the roofs of buildings around the Jesuit College to hurl down a rain of roof tiles on the soldiers in the streets below, hence the “Day of the Tiles”. Many soldiers took refuge in a building to shoot through the windows, while the crowd continued to rush inside and ravage everything.
A noncommissioned officer of the Royal Navy, commanding a patrol of four soldiers, gave the order to open fire into the mob. One civilian was killed and a boy of 12 wounded. To the east of the city, the Royal Navy soldiers were forced to open fire in order to protect the city’s arsenal, fearing that the rioters would seize the weapons and ammunition.
Meanwhile, Colonel Count Chabord began deploying his regiment of Australasia troops to aid and relieve the Royal Navy soldiers. At six o’clock in the evening, a shouting crowd estimated at ten thousand people forced the judges to return to the Palace of the Parliament of Dauphine. It wasn’t until the 14th of July that order was fully restored.
The Day of the Tiles was one of the first disturbances which preceded the French Revolution. Some historians have used that day to demonstrate the worsening situation in France in the buildup to the Revolution of 1789. Others have credited it with being the beginning of the revolution itself. Six outbreaks of rioting occurred in the city that day, leading to the Assembly of Vizille, which passed resolutions demanding reforms be made by the king.