sans-culotte

In the French Revolution, a member of the working classes, who wore trousers, as opposed to the aristocracy and bourgeoisie, who wore knee breeches. In Paris, the sans-culottes, who drew their support predominantly from apprentices, small shopkeepers, craftspeople, and the unemployed, comprised a large armed force that could be mobilized by radical politicians, for example in the Jacobin seizure of power from the Girondins in June 1793. Their fate was sealed by the fall of the Jacobins between 1794 and 1795.