Concept
Sans-culottes
Overview
The sans-culottes (French: [sɑ̃kylɔt]; lit. 'without breeches') were the common people of the lower classes in late 18th-century France, a great many of whom became radical and militant partisans of the French Revolution in response to their poor quality of life under the Ancien Régime.
The name sans-culottes refers to their clothing, and through that to their lower-class status: culottes were the fashionable silk knee-breeches of the 18th-century nobility and bourgeoisie, and the working class sans-culottes wore pantaloons, or long trousers, instead. The sans-culottes, most of them urban labourers, served as the driving popular force behind the revolution.
The word sans-culotte, which is opposed to "aristocrat", seems to have been used for the first time on 28 February 1791 by Jean-Bernard Gauthier de Murnan in a derogatory sense, speaking about a "sans-culottes army". The word came into vogue during the demonstration of 20 June 1792.
They were judged by the other revolutionaries as "radicals" because they advocated a direct democracy, that is to say, without intermediaries such as members of parliament. Though ill-clad and ill-equipped, with little or no support from the middle and upper classes, they made up the bulk of the Revolutionary army and were responsible for many executions during the early years of the French Revolutionary Wars.
According to Peter Stephen Du Ponceau, secretary and interpreter to Baron de Steuben, Steuben first used the expression sans culottes in 1778: "The Baron loved to speak of that dinner, and of his sans culottes as he called us. Thus the denomination was first invented in America, and applied to the brave officers and soldiers of our revolutionary army, at a time when, it could not be foreseen, that the name which honoured the followers of Washington would afterwards be assumed by the satellites of a Marat and a Robespierre".
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
Found by search and not yet checked by a person; they may only mention the idea in passing.
Shirts are made of bleached or coloured cotton goods; the dresses of the women are chiefly of cotton print goods, and woollen petticoats are rarely to be seen on the washline. The men wear chiefly trousers of fustian or other heavy cotton goods, and jackets or coats of the same. Fustian has become the proverbial costume of the working-men, who are called "fustian jackets," and call themselves so in contrast to the…
Friedrich Engels, The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 with a Preface written in 1892
States what Sans-culottes is.
But this class again sub-divided itself into different fractions. There were, firstly, the more wealthy farmers, what is called in Germany _Gross_ and _Mittel-Bauern_, proprietors of more or less extensive farms, and each of them commanding the services of several agricultural laborers. This class, placed between the large untaxed feudal landowners, and the smaller peasantry and farm laborers, for obvious reasons…
Friedrich Engels, Revolution and Counter-Revolution
States what Sans-culottes is.
An ancient French writer calls them a new and wicked device, to procure liberty to slaves, and encourage them in shaking off the dominion of their masters [x]. The famous charter, as it is called, of the Conqueror to the city of London, though granted at a time when he assumed the appearance of gentleness and lenity, is nothing but a letter of protection, and a declaration that the citizens should not be treated as…
David Hume, The History of England, Volume I
States what Sans-culottes is.
Related ideas
- French Revolution
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau
- Niccolò Machiavelli
- Patriotism
- Google Books
- Working class
- Social equality
- Proletariat
- Bourgeoisie
- Enragés
- Jacques Hébert
Place in the tradition
Part of Anarchism.