Sans-culottes (French for without knee-breeches) was a term created 1790 - 1792 by the French to describe the poorer members of the Third Estate, according to the dominant theory because they usually wore pantaloons (full-length trousers or pants) instead of the chic knee-length culotte. The term came to refer to the ill-clad and ill-equipped volunteers of the Revolutionary army during the early years of the French Revolutionary Wars, but, above all, to the working class radicals of the Revolut… (
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