Daily Life During the French Revolution (16 page)

Embroidered handkerchiefs and fans continued to be carried,
but, in place of the exquisite and costly works of art in ivory, tortoise
shell, or mother-of-pearl, fans were now made of wood or paper and embellished
with brilliant designs depicting, for instance, the National Guard, Lafayette,
or the Estates-General.

Because they had operated under royal patronage, the lace
factories were torn down and demolished. Some of the lacemakers were put to
death and their patterns destroyed.

The uniform of the sans-culottes did not meet with great
success and lasted only a few years. It was cast aside after the fall of the
Jacobins in July 1794, when the Convention, always looking toward uniformity,
commissioned the artist Jacques-Louis David to create a national costume.
Attempting to fill the requirements of an outfit suitable to the ideal of
equality within the new social order, David produced a design that consisted of
tight trousers with boots, a tunic, and a short coat, but this was never put
into practice.

In 1797, the outcome of the search for a national dress was
that all materials had to be made in France and the principal colors should be
blue, white, and red. Eventually, all deputies were ordered to wear a coat of
blue, a tricolor belt, a scarlet cloak, and a velvet hat with the tricolored
plume.

Before the revolution, children were given traditional
names such as Jacques, René, Antoine, Sophie, and Françoise. Saints’ names,
once so popular and widespread, were now out of favor, so others had to be
found to replace them. Names of heroes of the revolution or taken from the much-admired
Romans and Greeks now began to be used, and names like Brutus and Epaminondas
(a Greek general who defeated the Spartans) were employed. One female infant
was registered as Phytogynéantrope, which means “a woman who gives birth only
to warrior sons.” Other babies were given names containing Marat or August the
Tenth, Fructidor, and even Constitution. One girl was called
Civilization-Jemmapes-République. Her nickname has not been recorded.

The red bonnet has a special place in French history. It
was modeled on the ancient Phrygian cap adopted by freed slaves in Roman times
as a symbol of liberty. Regardless of the material and whether it had a hanging
pointed crown or was simply a skullcap with a pointed crown, it was always
ornamented with the tricolor cockade. By the end of 1792, this cap represented
the political power of the militant sans-culottes and served to identify them
with the lower ranks of the Third Estate of the Old Regime. Although the revolutionary
bourgeoisie rarely wore the red bonnet, many citizens did so spontaneously,
wishing to demonstrate clearly their repudiation of all that had gone before.
These bonnets were held high at ceremonies, sometimes placed on the top of
poles or hung on liberty trees, and vividly symbolized the new freedom from the
old absolute oppression. After the invasion of the Tuileries palace, on June
20, 1792, even the king put on one of these red caps, albeit reluctantly.

All streets and squares in Paris that had been named for
the king, court, or someone who had served the monarchy were changed to honor
the revolution: Place de Louis XV became the Place de la Révolution, rue
Bourbon became rue de Lille, and rue Madame was changed to rue des Citoyennes.
In addition, streets previously named for Saint Denis, Saint Foch, and Saint
Antoine became simply rue Denis, rue Foch, and rue Antoine. The cathedral of
Nôtre Dame became the Temple of Reason. Provincial towns with names of saints
or royalty sometimes changed their name completely; for example,
Saint-Lô
became
known as
Rocher de la Liberté.

To conform to the egalitarian spirit of the times, the
familiar second-person singular,
tu,
was used instead of the formal
vous
throughout much of the country. The idea of using
tu
in all
circumstances was first proposed in an article in the
Mercure National
on
December 14, 1790, but nothing more was said about it until three years later,
when the article came to the attention of the Convention. No laws were passed
registering the mandatory use of
tu,
but the debate stirred the public
and that form of “you” began to spread. Now the baker’s apprentice could
address his master and clients in a familiar form, a practice that had been
strictly forbidden. Within a short time, people in Paris were speaking to one
another as if they were family or long-time, intimate friends. Anyone who
continued to use
vous
was treated as suspect.

Similarly, the forms of address
Monsieur
and
Madam
e
were replaced by
Citoyen
and
Citoyenne
with the same objective of
eliminating class distinction. All over the country, “Citizen” was the only
recognized form of address. Plays already being staged and works in the offing
had to have their wording changed to conform to the new usage. When a player at
the
Opéra-Comique
inadvertently used the old forms in a speech, he was
not excused for a lapse of memory and had to duck out of the way as the seats
were thrown at him.

Sans-culottes dancing around a
Liberty Tree decorated with a cockade and the revolutionary red bonnet. The
Bastille is shown on the right, and an Austrian army being routed is seen to
the left.

THE DIRECTORY

With the Directory came new trends based on the classical
styles of ancient Greece and Rome. As fashion journals began to reappear, daily
life returned to the trappings of normality. When
émigrés
returned to
France, they were often seen wearing the blond wigs of the anti-revolutionaries
of the earlier time as well as a black collar as a sign of mourning for the
fate of king, queen, and country and a green cravat signifying royal fidelity. The
revolutionary, on the other hand, wore a red collar on his coat, and the
antagonisms between the blacks and reds led to numerous fierce street battles.

Instead of expensive necklaces and rings, women began
wearing gilded copper wedding rings with the words “Nation,” “Law,” and “King”
engraved on them and earrings made of glass and a variety of other trinkets,
sometimes made out of bits of stone from the Bastille.

After the Terror and during the years of the Directory, the
Muscadins
and the
Merveilleuses
—children of the wealthy
bourgeoisie—reacted against the austerity of the government. To demonstrate
their independence and their repudiation of the republican state, they went to
extremes in the way they dressed, openly showing contempt for what they
considered to be Jacobin mediocrity. Very little attention was paid by this
group to the principles of virtue and morality.

The
Muscadins,
also known as the
Incroyables,
Impossibles,
or
Petits-Maîtres,
were rich and effeminate
middle-class dandies who copied the clothes of the earlier court nobility,
strutting about like peacocks. They were mainly young Parisians who had avoided
conscription in the revolutionary wars.

They were seen in frock coats, sometimes with large pleats
across the back and high, turndown collars and exaggerated lapels that sloped
away from the waist when buttoned. Corsets helped show off small waistlines,
since the coats fitted snugly. An elaborate vest with as many as three visible
layers of different colors on the bottom edge would also have had a high collar
that turned down to show the inside neck of the coat. Coats and vests were
beribboned and had buttonholes of gold. A monocle, a sword, or even a hunting
knife might be worn and a knotted, wooden, lead-weighted stick carried in the
hand.

A large, muslin cravat, often fastened with a jeweled pin,
had a padded silk cushion concealed underneath. It was wound loosely around the
neck several times. Lace filled any remaining opening in the vest. Their
breeches (or culottes), fastened with buttons or ribbons just below the knees,
usually were worn with striped silk stockings and high black boots.

The
Muscadins
’ felt hats were extreme in size and
were decorated with red, white, and blue rosette,, although many appeared in
the white, royalist cockade (in defiance of the law) and sometimes also a silk
cord or a plume. Hoop earrings often dangled from their ears. They were
thoroughly disliked, as their showy dress threatened the sedate and serious
image being cultivated by the bourgeoisie. They were employed by the
Thermidorians to terrorize former radicals but were repressed when their
usefulness came to an end.

Others chose to wear more dignified and refined styles,
including frock coats with small lapels and stand-up collars in black or violet
velvet, black satin vests, and very tight breeches of dull blue cloth. Other
popular colors were canary yellow and bottle green with a brown coat, the latter
with small lapels and a modest standing collar. The silk or muslin cravat came
in green, bright red, or black. Boots of various heights were made of soft
leather and had pointed toes; stockings were generally white or striped. Once
again, two watches or charms hung from the vest, and the lorgnette was used.
Hair was beginning to be cut short in the Roman style.

After the Terror, people began to enjoy themselves again.
One of the best-known of the open-air dance pavilions was the
Bal des
Victimes,
so-called because only those who had lost a relative to the
guillotine could go there. Men who attended the dance pavilions generally kept
their hair short, often in a ragged cut.

The
Merveilleuses,
the female counterpart of the
Muscadins,
were often seen in gowns cut in the classical Greek tradition. In Paris,
some of these women began to wear see-through or even topless diaphanous gowns
or a transparent tunic over flesh-colored silk tights. The predominant color
was white; this remained so throughout the period of the Empire. Necklines were
very low, bodices short and tight, and skirts full and with trains that were
carried over the arm. In addition, knee-length tunics were popular, split up
the sides, sometimes as far as the waist, to show a bare leg or flesh-colored
tights.

Some gowns were sleeveless, the material held together with
brooches at the shoulders, long gloves covering the bare arms. If there were
sleeves, they were either long and tight or very short. Materials were sheer
Indian muslin, sometimes embroidered, gauze, lace, or very light cotton. There
were no pockets in the gowns, so small drawstring embroidered bags, often with
fringes and tassels, were suspended from the belt to hold necessary articles.

Outdoors, long, narrow scarves of cashmere, serge, silk, or
rabbit wool in colors such as orange, white, and black were worn over the light
gowns. The scarves matched the wearers’ bonnets. High-crowned straw bonnets
were trimmed with lace, ribbons, feathers, or flowers. The meaning of the word
“bonnet” (previously applied to men’s toques) had changed by this time to
designate a woman’s hat that was tied under the chin. Other hats included
turbans.

Blond wigs and switches of false hair again made their
appearance. It was usual to change wigs frequently, and many women owned 10 or
more. Wigs were curled and decorated with ribbons or jewels. Ancient hairstyles
were copied, and in hairdressing salons, busts of goddesses and empresses were
exhibited. When a woman chose not to wear a wig, her hair was plaited or curled
in the manner of the ancients, brushed back, waved, curled, oiled, and knotted
or twisted at the nape of the neck in a psyche knot. Some women cut their hair
short, brushed it in all directions from the crown, with uneven ends hanging
over the forehead and sides, occasionally with long, straggling pieces hanging
down at the sides of the face, and shaved the back of their heads to create a
style known as
coiffure à la Titus.
A short-lived fad was to appear with
shaved heads and a ribbon of red velvet around the throat, a gruesome reminder
of the victims of the guillotine.

Jewelry, such as necklaces, rings, and bracelets for bare
ankles and toes, was extensively worn, along with strings of pearls in the hair
and jeweled belts about two inches wide worn just under the breasts.

Apple green remained a favorite color, and the soft, flat,
pointed sandals—sometimes just a sole strapped to the foot by ribbons—were
often of this shade. The sandals could be laced up to and around the ankle with
narrow, red straps decorated with jewels—but more often flat slippers of fabric
or kid were worn with white silk stockings. A small bow or edging finished the
slipper.