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| Years active | 1791-1830 |
|---|---|
| Country | Kingdom of France -July Monarchy |
| Major figures | |
| Influenced | The Montagnards |
Thesans-culottes (French:[sɑ̃kylɔt];lit. 'withoutbreeches') were thecommon people of thelower classes in late 18th-centuryFrance, a great many of whom became radical and militant partisans of theFrench Revolution in response to theirpoor quality of life under theAncien Régime.[1] The wordsans-culotte, which is opposed to "aristocrat", seems to have been used for the first time on 28 February 1791 byJean-Bernard Gauthier de Murnan in a derogatory sense, speaking about a "sans-culottes army".[2] The word came into vogue during thedemonstration of 20 June 1792.[3]
The namesans-culottes refers to their clothing, and through that to their lower-class status:culottes were the fashionable silkknee-breeches of the 18th-centurynobility andbourgeoisie, and theworking classsans-culottes worepantaloons, or long trousers, instead.[1] Thesans-culottes, most of them urban labourers, served as the driving popular force behind the revolution. They were judged by the other revolutionaries as "radicals" because they advocated adirect 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 theRevolutionary army and were responsible for many executions during the early years of theFrench Revolutionary Wars.[4]: 1–22
The most fundamental political ideals of thesans-culottes weresocial equality,economic equality, andpopular democracy. They supported the abolition of all the authority and privileges of themonarchy, nobility, andRoman Catholic clergy, the establishment of fixed wages, the implementation ofprice controls to ensure affordable food and other essentials, and vigilance againstcounter-revolutionaries.[4]
Thesans-culottes ... campaigned for a more democratic constitution, price controls, harsh laws against political enemies, and economic legislation to assist the needy.[5]
They expressed their demands through petitions of the sections presented to the assemblies (the Legislative, and Convention) by the delegates. Thesans-culottes had a third way of applying pressure to achieve their demands: the police and the courts received thousands of denunciations of traitors and supposed conspirators.[6] The height of their influence spanned roughly from the original overthrow of the monarchy in 1792 to theThermidorian Reaction in 1794.[1] Throughout the revolution, thesans-culottes provided the principal support behind the more radical and anti-bourgeoisie factions of theParis Commune, such as theEnragés and theHébertists, and were led by populist revolutionaries such asJacques Roux andJacques Hébert.[1]
In the summer of 1793 thesans-culottes, the Parisianenragés especially, accused even the most radical Jacobins of being too tolerant of greed and insufficiently universalist. From this far-left point of view, all Jacobins were at fault because all of them tolerated existing civil life and social structures.[7]
Thesans-culottes also populated the ranks ofparamilitary forces charged with physically enforcing the policies and legislation of the revolutionary government, a task that commonly included violence and the carrying out of executions against perceived enemies of the revolution.
During the peak of their influence, thesans-culottes were seen as the truest and most authentic sons of the French Revolution, held up as living representations of the revolutionary spirit. During the height of revolutionary fervor, such as during theReign of Terror when it was dangerous to be associated with anything counter-revolutionary, even public functionaries and officials actually from middle or upper-class backgrounds adopted the clothing and label of thesans-culottes as a demonstration of solidarity with the working class and patriotism for the newFrench Republic.[1]
But by early 1794, as the bourgeois and middle-class elements of the revolution began to gain more political influence, the fervent working-classradicalism of thesans-culottes rapidly began falling out of favour within the National Convention.[1] It was not long beforeMaximilien de Robespierre and the now dominantJacobin Club turned against the radical factions of the National Convention, including thesans-culottes, despite their having previously been the strongest supporters of the revolution and its government. Several important leaders of theEnragés and Hébertists were imprisoned and executed by the veryrevolutionary tribunals they had supported.[1] The execution of radical leader Jacques Hébert spelled the decline of thesans-culottes,[1][page needed] and with the successive rise of even more conservative governments, theThermidorian Convention and theFrench Directory, they were definitively silenced as a political force.[4]: 258–259 After the defeat of the1795 popular revolt in Paris, thesans-culottes ceased to play any effective political role in France until theJuly Revolution of 1830.
The distinctive costume of typicalsans-culottes featured:[1]
On 27 April 1791, Robespierre opposed plans to reorganize the National Guard and restrict its membership toactive citizens, largely property owners.[8] He demanded the reconstitution of the army on a democratic basis to allowpassive citizens. He felt that the army had to become the instrument of defence of the Revolution and no longer be a threat to it.[9] On 28 April, despite Robespierre's intensive campaign, the principle of an armed bourgeois militia was definitively enacted in the Assembly.[9]
Along with other Jacobins, he urged in his magazine the creation of a revolutionary army in Paris, consisting of 20,000 men,[10][clarification needed] with the goal to defend "liberty" (the revolution), maintain order in the sections, and educate the members in democratic principles; an idea he borrowed fromJean-Jacques Rousseau andMachiavelli.[11] According toJean Jaures, he considered this even more important than theright to strike.[12]
Following the king's veto of the Assembly's efforts to raise a militia of volunteers, the reinstatement of Brissotin ministers and suppression ofnon-juring priests, the monarchy faced an abortiveDemonstration of 20 June 1792.[13]Sergent-Marceau andPanis [fr], the administrators of police, urged thesans-culottes to lay down their weapons, telling them it was illegal to present a petition in arms, although their march to the Tuileries was not banned. They invited the officials to join the procession and march along with them.[14]
Early in the morning (10 August 1792) 30,000 Fédérés, andsans-culottes militants from the sections led a successful assault upon the Tuileries;[15][clarification needed] according to Robespierre a triumph for the "passive" (non-voting) citizens.Sulpice Huguenin [fr], head of thesans-culottes in theFaubourg Saint-Antoine, was appointed provisional president of the Insurrectionary Commune.
In Spring 1793, after the defection ofDumouriez, Robespierre urged the creation of a "sans-culotte army" to sweep away any conspirator.[16]
On 1 May, the crowds threatened armed insurrection if the emergency measures demanded (price control) were not adopted.[citation needed] On 8 and 12 May Robespierre repeated in the Jacobin club the necessity of founding a revolutionary army consisting ofsans-culottes, paid by a tax on the rich, to beat the aristocrats inside France and the convention. Every public square should be used to produce arms and pikes.[17][18] On 18 May,Marguerite-Élie Guadet proposed to examine the "exactions" and to replace municipal authorities.[19][20][21]
As rioting persisted, acommission of inquiry of twelve members, with a very strong Girondin majority, was set up to investigate the anarchy in the communes and the activities of thesans-culottes. On 28 May, the Paris Commune accepted the creation of asans-culottes army to enforce revolutionary laws.[22] Petitioners from the sections and the Commune appeared at the bar of the Convention at about five o'clock in the afternoon on 31 May. They demanded that a domestic revolutionary army should be raised and that the price of bread should be fixed at threesous a pound, that nobles holding senior rank in the army should be dismissed, that armouries should be created for arming thesans-culottes, the departments of State purged, suspects arrested, the right to vote provisionally reserved tosans-culottes only, and a fund set apart for the relatives of those defending their country and for the relief of aged and infirm.[23][24][25] According to Hampson, the subject is quite extraordinarily complicated and obscure.[26] The next day all Paris was in arms.
Hanriot was ordered to march his National Guard, by this time mostly consisting ofsans-culottes, from the town hall to thePalais National.[27] On 2 June 1793, a large force of supposedly 80,000sans-culottes and National Guards led by Hanriot, surrounded the convention with 160–172 guns.
On 4 September, thesans-culottes again invaded the convention. They demanded tougher measures against rising prices and the setting up of a system of terror to root out the counter-revolution.[28] Thesans-culottes took an especially active interest in the revolutionary army.[29]
A "sans-culotte army" (in a sense, Robespierre's brain-child[30]) was formed in Paris.[31]
Barère voiced the Committee of Public Safety's support for the measures desired by the assembly: he presented a decree that was passed immediately, establishing a paid armed force of 6,000 men and 1,000 gunners "designed to crush the counter-revolutionaries, to execute wherever the need arises the revolutionary laws and the measures of public safety that are decreed by the National Convention, and to protect provisions (A force of citizen-soldiers which could go into the countryside to supervise the requisition of grain, to prevent the manoeuvres of richégoistes and deliver them up to the vengeance of the laws)".[31][verification needed]) For that reason, twelve travelling tribunals (with moveable guillotines) were set up.
Three months later, on 4 December, the departmental revolutionary armies (except in Paris) were banned on proposal of Tallien.[32][33][34] The sections lost all rights to control their delegates and officials.
On 4 March 1794, there were rumours of uprising in theCordeliers club. The Hébertists hoped that the National Convention would expel Robespierre and his Montagnard supporters.[35] Thesans-culottes did not respond, and Hanriot refused to cooperate. On 13 March Hébert, the voice of thesans-culottes, had been using the latest issue ofLe Père Duchesne to criticise Robespierre. On 18 March Bourdon attacked the Commune and thesans-culottes army.Jacques Hébert,Ronsin,Vincent,Momoro,Clootz,De Kock were arrested on charges of complicity with foreign powers (William Pitt the Younger) and guillotined on 24 March. On 27 March the infantry and cavalry of the revolutionary army,[36] for eight months active in Paris and surroundings, were finally disbanded, except their artillery.[37][38] (Hanriot was denounced by the Revolutionary Tribunal as an accomplice of Hébert, but seems to have been protected by Robespierre.)[39]
The working class was especially hurt by a hail storm which damaged grain crops in 1788, which caused bread prices to skyrocket.[40] While the peasants of rural France could sustain themselves with their farms, and the wealthyaristocracy could still afford bread, the urban workers of France, the group that comprised thesans-culottes, suffered. In the city, the division grew between thesans-culottes and these wealthy aristocrats; the former had a particular hostility "towards those with large private incomes."[41]
The faction known as theMontagnards expressed concern for the working classes of France.[42] When theNational Convention met to discuss the fate of the former kingLouis XVI in 1792, thesans-culottes vehemently opposed a propertrial, instead opting for an immediateexecution. The moderateGirondin faction voted for a trial, but the radical Montagnards sided with thesans-culottes, deeming that a trial was not necessary, and won with a slim majority. Louis XVI was executed on January 21, 1793.[43]
The demands of thesans-culottes did not stop with the execution of the King, and the Montagnards worked hard to fulfil their mounting orders. This increased pressure from the radical masses exacerbated the ideological split between the Montagnards and the Girondins, and tensions began to grow within the convention.[44] Eventually, by May 1793, the Montagnards worked with theNational Guard—which was, at this time, mostlysans-culottes—to depose many of the Girondin deputies. Jeremy Popkin writes, "[the Montagnards and thesans-culottes] surrounded the Convention, and two days later the intimidated assembly suspended twenty-nine Girondin deputies. The defeated Girondin leaders fled to theprovinces. The Montagnards were left in control of the Convention, which itself was clearly at the mercy of whoever could command the armedsans-culottes battalions."[45] Now, whoever was in control of France's destiny had to answer to thesans-culottes, who "effectively exercised legislative power" in situations of unrest.[46] Otherwise, they would risk a similar uprising and their own exile, or possibly even execution. This political shift towards radicalism would soon turn into the Reign of Terror.
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The mass violence of thesans-culottes created a lasting impact during theReign of Terror. These revolutionaries allied themselves most readily with those in power who promised radical change. Thesans-culottes believed in a complete upheaval of the government, pushing for the execution of any that were considered corrupt by the leaders, even going as far as wanting "the enemies of the republic [to] hang-main and theguillotine to stand like the first patriots, the finisher of the law."[47] The support of thesans-culottes could be used as a political weapon to get rid of enemies of the Revolution. The key to Robespierre's Terror lay in their willingness and ability to mobilize. Thus, theCommittee leaders used speeches to gain their support. In a speechOn the Principles of Political Morality.[48]Robespierre proclaimed: "It has been said that terror was the mainspring of despotic government. Does your government, then, resemble a despotism? Yes, as the sword which glitters in the hands of liberty's heroes resembles the one with which tyranny's lackeys are armed." Robespierre expressed a desire for liberty that thesans-culottes admired. They pushed the committee for radical changes and often found a voice with Robespierre.
The popular image of thesans-culotte has gained currency as an enduring symbol for the passion, idealism andpatriotism of the common man of theFrench Revolution.[49] The termsans-culottism,sans-culottisme in French, refers to this idealized image and the themes associated with it.[49] Many public figures and revolutionaries who were not strictly working class styled themselvescitoyens sans-culottes in solidarity and recognition.[1] However, in the period immediately following theThermidorian Reaction, thesans-culottes and otherfar-leftpolitical factions were heavily persecuted and repressed by the likes of theMuscadins.[1]
TheFrench Republican Calendar at first termed the complementary days at the end of the yearSansculottides; however, theNational Convention suppressed the name when adopting theConstitution of the Year III (1795) and substituted the namejours complémentaires ("additional days").[1]
According to Sally Waller, part of thesans-culottes mantra was "permanent anticipation of betrayal and treachery".[50] The members of thesans-culottes were constantly on edge and fearing betrayal, which can be attributed to their violent and radical rebellion tactics.[51]Marxist historianEric Hobsbawm observes that thesans-culottes were a "shapeless, mostly urban movement of the labouring poor, small craftsmen, shopkeepers, artisans, tiny entrepreneurs and the like".[52] He further notes they were organised notably in the local political clubs of Paris and "provided the main striking-force of the revolution".[52] Hobsbawm writes that these were the actual demonstrators, rioters and constructors of the streetbarricades. However, Hobsbawm maintains,sans-culottism provided no real alternative to the bourgeois radicalism of theJacobins;[52] from Hobsbawm's Marxist perspective, the ideal of thesans-culottes, which sought to express the interests of the "little men" who existed between the poles of thebourgeoisie and theproletariat, was contradictory and ultimately unrealizable.[52]
The Marxist historianAlbert Soboul emphasized the importance of thesans-culottes as a social class, a sort of proto-proletariat that played a central role in the French Revolution. That view has been sharply attacked by scholars who say thesans-culottes were not a class at all. As one historian observes, Soboul's concept has not been used by scholars in any other period of French history.[53]
The term "culottes" in more recent French describes women's underpants, an article of clothing that has little or no relation to the historical culottes, but now also refers to apparent skirts that are actually split with two legs. The termsans-culottes has been used colloquially to mean not wearing underpants.[54]
{{cite journal}}:Cite journal requires|journal= (help)And from no bra on the Upper East Side ... ... to no panties in Times Square.
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