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) instead of the fashionable knee-length culotte. History 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 R… (More on Sans-culottes)