Sans-culotte

" without-culottes"

Characters emblematic of the French revolution, protagonists par excellence of the revolutionary days, figures of the “Patriotic S virtuous”, the sans-culottes are revolutionists resulting from the modest and hard part of the people. If the sans-culottes tend to be distinguished, by their attitude and their claims of the remainder of the revolutionary personnel, the historians testified to the difficulties of giving them a homogeneous social identity: although the sans-culotte is resulting from the medium of the shop and the modest structures of artisanal production, it does not define a “economic class” as such.

If it is delicate to allot a whole of coherent political designs to him, the claims specifically sans-culottes are generally related to the problem of the Subsistances, i.e. with the food shortages and the increase in the consumables. “… the hunger constituted cement of categories as various as the craftsman, the tradesman, the workman, as an shared interest united against the large merchant, the contractor, the noble or middle-class monopolizer.”

The epithet " without-culotte" , which were in the beginning synonymous with “rabble”, indicating at the same time “poverty”, “bestiality”, and “the inculture”, responsible itself for a radically new and positive significance during the French revolution.

The sans-culotte attitude: distinctive practices and marks

a figure of opposition

To be sans-culotte, it is before a a whole assertion based on distinctions. The sans-culotte, entire made up in opposition to the figure of the aristocrat, is equipped simply, asserts the use of the tu, challenges himself by the term “Citoyen”, refuses pride and the contempt and acts as policy. If it deploys, by its aspect, its language, its political activism, (…) characteristics resulting from the new order, it is also a vehicle of practices and sensitivities of Old Mode. Its claim of the maximum of the food products (see: Loi of the general maximum) falls under the continuity of the revolts frumentaires which took place under the monarchical order. `Fraction' of the people, it speaks on his behalf by claiming direct democracy. The sans-culotte wants to exert a permanent control on the members of Parliament and their decisions. In this manner, it is also the paradigmatic figure of a competitor system of legitimacy to that of the Parliament of the representatives. The stake which the sans-culotte represents, it is the entry of the social problems in a qualified revolution of “middle-class woman”. Animated by “egalitarian passion”, the sans-culotte mistakes the richness and does not accept either a model meritocratic of type of Gironde. While at the same time the democracy does not conceive itself, not like plurality, but like unit, the sans-culotte is a figure which marks antagonism, initially socio-economic then increasingly political as the revolution advances. However, the sans-culotte does not set up a homogeneous socio-economic group and thus does not form a social class with whole share.

the language of clothing

At the 18th century, did not carry a breeches those which carried pants, i.e. those which worked their hands. Worker manual, tapestry maker at Midnight supper or typographer of the Lights, workman of the piece of furniture or craftsman of the Goblins. The pants was initially carried by the candidates of the Tiers state with the delegation. These candidates appointed in opposition to the King and the privileges of the nobility, will ensure the drafting of the Registers of grievances which will be inventoried, centralized and finished in Paris in April 1789. Thereafter, the elected officials of the third state will raise Vêtement S blacks with Bicorne S, of austere clothing which will slice with luxurious clothing of the elected officials of the two other orders of the Noblesse and of the Clergé. The sans-culotte draws, starting from the revolutionary event, pride of his trade. The inversion of the traditional values appears clearly by there: the privileged people that them birth exempted of the work, to which them formation made scorn the manual work, became a constant object of derision. In addition to the pants, often striped with the three colors, the sans-culotte raises the Blouse and of the Gilet or the short jacket to large buttons (the carmagnole), and of the Sabot S which mark its membership of the hard-working people. The port of the red bonnet, at the origin used to protect the hair in certain professions and which returns to the revolts of the 17th century and evokes the slaves freed from the ancient Rome, or " Phrygian cap " , affirms itself as of on August 10th, like “symbol of the political power of the sans-culottes”,

propaganda sans-culotte

The iconographic representations, largely diffused in the forms of engravings or prints sold with shouted, idealize the body of the sans-culotte, robust, muscular, balanced, that all opposed to the monstrous bodies privileged people, obese bishops last with the “patriotic grease remover” or noble thread-like and émaciés, king-pig or queen-ostrich (“Autruchienne”), having lost any dignity and straight to the respect.

The revolutionary theater (Sylvain Marshal, the last Judgment of the kings ) made of the sans-culotte the symbol of natural justice.

In the republican Calendar, the five complementary days were called sans-culottid S until in 1795.

Appearance and disappearance of Without-culotterie

The sans-culotte is a new revolutionary figure, which will last the time of the revolution strictly. Its entry masses some in policy coincides with the advent of the Republic (August 1792) and the establishment of the male universal taxable quota, and puts thus fine at the paradox of the Constitution of 1791 which, although conferring sovereignty to the people, gave the political power to an elite. As from 1791 especially, when the escape in Varennes (20 - June 26th) then the massacre of the Field-of-March (July 17th) had clearly shown that part of the elites had joined the camp of the reaction by covering the treason of the king and by making to mitrailler the people, the militants of the Parisian sections made of their costume a political proclamation against the mode of constitutional monarchy censitaire. The sans-culotte, while contributing to the domination of the radical faction, arrives at the front of the Parisian political scene of August 1792 at the summer 1794. Without-culotterie indeed finds one of the sources of its political effectiveness in fascination rousseauist of many men of the Lights for manual work. Readers of the Encyclopedia , debtors with respect to the sans-culottes who had made the Revolution in Paris, thus saving the constituent National Assembly, the political leaders of the Revolution marked their attachment with the sans-culottes until the fall of Robespierre: thus one imposed for example during the Terreur, the the democratic use of the tu replacing servile use of the vous.

Some journalists could stick to these people combatant and revolutionist: Jean-Paul Marat and his Friendly of the people , in very an other register, Jacques-Rene Hébert and his Father Duchesne but also Red-headed Jacques and his Mad group . They were a long time the spokesperson, more than the guides, uncontested. The sans-culottes gathered, on the one hand, in the assemblies of the sections and, on the other hand, in the clubs. The assemblies of the sections, organizations of the life of district instituted as of 1790, accommodated in theory only the active citizens; however, the central role played per many workmen and small craftsmen, as well as the fact that they had remained armed since 1789, gave them a say. The clubs especially - Club of Cordeliers, club of Évêché, fraternal Company of the two sexes, Swiss Club - were the instrument of which the sans-culottes were used for themselves to influence the political life. The club of Évêché, resulting from Cordeliers, played a big role in the preparation of August 10th, day of the catch of Tileries and the fall of the throne. As from September 1792, the Club of the Jacobins opened to the poorest citizens: it consequently became most important of the meeting rooms for the sans-culottes.

Those expressed their claim by petitions of the sections submitted to the assemblies (Législative, then Convention) by delegates; there was thus a succession of petitions claiming the arrest of the chiefs Girondins before the insurrection of the May 31st to the June 2nd. The insurrection, the “day”, was the second means of action. Armed violence was a frequent recourse of the August 10th 1792 to the vain riots of germinal and meadow An III. The rioters, supported by the guns of the national guard to which they belonged, came to show their threatening force to obtain win. On their determination and of capacity of resistance of the political power obviously success depended on the attempt: reality the August 10th or the June 2nd, it was null during the period of the Convention thermidorienne.

With the installation, in 1792 and 1793, inspection committees, the sans-culottes had a third means of pressure on the policy: the police force and the courts accepted per thousands the denunciations of the traitors and supposed conspirators. For the effectiveness of Terror, the revolutionary monitoring exerted by the sans-culottes was essential. This one abolished by Convention thermidorienne, came the moment when the sans-culottes, deprived of the club of the Jacobins, disarmed, driven and followed by a remarkably infiltrated police force, had to give up their capacity of pressure. The Republic neither would be saved nor directed any more by their anger, but by the soldiers.

In 1794 with the fall of Robespierre, the sans-culottes lose their capacities and their political role and cultural.

The sans-culotte, between speech and reality?

“The sociology of the sans-culotte is intentionally vague: rubber band, it allows the identification of the greatest number,…”. One can think that it is about a process of legitimation reciprocal between the Jacobins and the people. The sans-culotte, is perhaps an intermediate form allowing the dialog between new citizens and deputies. “The appellative sans-culotte is before a a whole category of the revolutionary public spirit” and corresponds to the theoretical ideal of the citizen such as it is worked out by the political discourse to rejoin the people. This `model' of citizen is to some extent invented by the Jacobins and the Mountain and gives them an ally to fight against the counter-revolutionaries and to separate other factions of the Parliament. But it is a model which is fixed in reality because it gives to each one the possibility of reaching a developed social status. Fruit of a speech on the people in constant evolution, the sans-culotte, designed like ideal or sociological reality, symbolizes the complete inversion of a system of social valorization.

Some additional elements

The elected officials sans-culottes repudiate and withdraw from their name the references to the nobility; some give each other names referring to the Roman republic like “Brutus” or “Gracchus”. The “Leroy” re-elect “Laloi”…

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