END OF THE 1500-YEAR-OLD MONARCHY

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

Sans culottes meant "without breeches" —  workers' trousers instead of elites' knee breeches and silk stockings. They took up the name in opposition to the privileged.

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

Though close to the most determined revolutionaries, the Jacobins, that they had their own goals is shown by their energy being greatest when the price of bread, the staple, was high.

--The classic study is that of George Rudé, The Crowd in the French Revolution, 1959. 

They were the striking force force that defeated the nobility. 

    The armed people," gouache, Lesieur brothers, 1793/1794 / zoom 

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June 20, 1792 : 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.*

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

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

Royalist images show the royals as self-controlled and courageous, which they were. 

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

La Manifestation du 20 juin 1792 au Tuileries by Jean-Baptiste Vérité after an unknown artist, 1796 / zoom

Louis, right, holds a soldier's hand over his heart to show that he is unafraid. Then he drinks to the Revolution, wearing the red cap (as seen below).

The sans-culotte, on the left, wears a patched coat. 

• Sans-culottes' view:

Gone from the web.

Zoom (please scroll down)

• Opposed images

An actor poses as a sans-culotte in a well-known painting by Louis Bouilly, 1792 / zoom; The Radicals' Arms by George Cruikshank, 1819 / zoom

Girondins: conservative opponents of the Jacobins. The painting shows sans-culottes greeting them before they arrest them. They are associated with Romans and carry a banner of fraternity.   

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On July 25 1792, the commander of the invading Prussian 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. The royals are given refuge in the Assembly, but the king forgets to tell his forces not to fight, and the confrontation ends in the massacre of most of the Swiss guards and in many other deaths.

Zoom: at Musée Carnavalet, not exhibited

Memories and records:

• Madame Campan sees a royal guard sitting on a bed. She cries to him to run away and he says he cannot move from fear. "Comme il disait ces mots, j'entends une troupe d'hommes monter précipitamment l'escalier : ils se jettent sur lui, je le vois assassiné. Je cours vers l'escalier, suivi de nos femmes. Ces femmes se jettent à leurs pieds et saisissent leur sabres. Le peu de largeur de l'escalier gênait les assassins ; mais j'avais déjà senti une main terrible s'enfoncer dans mon dos pour me saisir par mes vêtements, lorsqu'on cria du bas de l'escalier : Que faites-vous là haut ? L'horrible Marseillais* qui allait me massacrer répondit un heim [?], dont le son ne sortira jamais de ma mémoire. L'autre voix répondit ces seuls mots: « On ne tue pas les femmes ».

-- Memoirs, p. 328 

* Marseillais: Four hundred volunteers from the Marseilles region in southern France had just arrived, and stopped in Paris on their way to the frontier. Tanned, with black hair and moustaches and a heavy accent, they stood out. Their song, the Marseillaise, became the national anthem.

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• Ces chiffres [des attaquants morts ou blessés] ne disent pas l'héroïsme et le sacrifice individuels, ni les journées passées dans la terreur et la privation. 

[...] La victoire du 10 août, s'ils revenaient blessés ou mutilés, n'épargnait ni à eux ni à leurs familles les épreuves de la privation matérielle ; s'ils y trouvaient la mort, il y aurait de long mois d'attente avant que les autorités ne consentissent, éventuellement, à accorder une pension aux veuves et aux orphelins. Ainsi Pierre Dumont, cinquante ans, gazier, domicilié 254 rue du Faubourg-Saint-Antoine, porté mutilé  [...] mourut des suites de ses blessures deux ans plus tard ; on refusa une pension à sa femme. [Une page et demi d'exemples suivent.] 

-- Rudé, French edition, 1982, pp.128-129 (my trans.)

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The Musée Carnavalet gives the sans-culotte a few small pictures at the back of the last of five rooms. About the events shown here it says nothing.

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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