END OF THE 1500-YEAR-OLD MONARCHY

IN A CONTEXT OF WAR, LOOMING INVASION AND PROVINCIAL REVOLT, THE "SANS-CULOTTES" BRING THE MONARCHY TO AN END 

Sans culottes means "without breeches:" Instead of the elites' knee breeches and silk stockings, they wear the wide trousers of common people. They are not "rabble," but highly politicized craftspeople and shopkeepers.  

 Lafayette and Washington in 1784 by Rossiter & Mignot, 1851/ zoom; Sans-culottes by J.B. Lesueur, 1793-1794  / zoom 

They cause the Terror, but save the Revolution. 

("The Terror:" mass guillotining,  August 10, 1792-July 27, 1794)

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In a show of force between right and left, thousands of sans- culottes storm the Tuileries palace. Marie-Antoinette faces them from behind a table and Louis XVI drinks to the health of the people while wearing the phrygien cap.*

     Le Procès et mort du Roi ("The Trial and Death of the King)

*The red bonnet of freed Roman slaves, which many sans-culottes wear (participants in today's demonstrations may still do so in their memory).

• Royalists show the royals as self-controlled and courageous, which they were:

Nineteenth-century painting, probably by Thomas Falcon Marshall  / Internet, no source named

      The Demonstration of June 20, 1792 at the Tuileries by Jean-Baptiste Vérité after an unknown artist, 1796 / zoom

 Louis holds a soldier's hand over his heart to show that he is unafraid. 

• How the sans-culottes see it :

Zoom (please scroll down)

• Both sides' propaganda

An actor poses; by Louis Bouilly, 1792 / zoom; The Radicals' Arms by George Cruikshank, 1819/ zoom

 

• Relatively objective

Girondins (center-right opponents of Robespierre) in  prison, anonymous engraving, 1845 / zoom

Class separation is the only truth it this work painted a few years later: The top hats and Roman helmets distinguish figures who seem to like each other, thought the sans-culottes will arrest the deputies a few hours later and will have them guillotined.  

Eliminating the Girondins on May 31,1793 by Jean-Fulchran Harriet, toward 1800 / zoom

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On July 25 1792, the commander of the invading army threatens  "ever-memorable vengeance" if the Tuileries are attacked 

The sans-culottes find this proof that the king and queen are traitors: On August 10, they seize the Tuileries palace,  massacring the Swiss guards.

 

Storming the Tuileries on August 10, 1792 by Jean Duplessis-Bertaux, 1793 / zoom

The royals are imprisoned as crowds jeer. 

Nineteenth-century engraving / zoom

 The 15-hundred-year-old monarchy is dead.

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Next,

The "Temple," a prison that could have been worse