Sans-culottes

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Sans-culottes (French for without knee-breeches) was a term created 1790 - 1792 by the aristocracy to describe the poorer members of the Third Estate, according to the dominant theory because they usually wore pantaloons instead of the chique culotte.

Painted rendition of a sans-culottes.

Sans-culottes

Later, observers used it during the early years of the French Revolution, to refer to the ill-clad and ill-equipped volunteers of the Revolutionary army, and later generally to the extremists of the Revolution. Their support came from domestic crises, such as shortages of bread, or political injustice.

The sans-culottes were for the most part members of the poorer classes, or leaders of the populace, but during the Reign of Terror, public functionaries and persons of good education styled themselves citoyens sans-culottes.

The distinctive costume of typical sans-culottes featured:

the pantalon (long trousers) - in place of the culottes (knee-breeches) worn by the upper classes (hence the name 'without breeches')
the carmagnole (short-skirted coat)
the red cap of liberty
sabots (clogs, wooden footwear mainly worn in the countryside).

They were led by extreme revolutionaries such as Jacques Hebert, who was eventually executed. The Sans-culottes also gave their support to Maximilien Robespierre, another extreme radical that was the most prominent political figure during the radical phase of the French Revolution.

The influence of the sans-culottes ceased with the reaction that followed the fall of Robespierre (July 1794), and the name itself became proscribed. Without effective leadership of their own against the combined might of the Jacobins, the sans-culottes scattered into the rural areas of France to form renegade groups.

Derived terms

Sanculottism, from the French sanculottisme, originally refers to the period and 'patriotic' revolutionary movement of the sansculottes
The Republican Calendar at first termed the complementary days at the end of the year Sans-culottides; however, the National Convention suppressed the name when adopting the constitution of the year III (1795) and substituted the name jours complémentaires.

Sources

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