ICSE Class 9 Answered

After the French Revolution, the power was seized by the Jacobins. A large group among the Jacobins decided to start wearing long striped trousers similar to those worn by dock workers. This was done to look similar to common people and look different from nobles. This was a way of showing the end of the power exercised by the wearers of knee breeches (knee breeches were worn by the nobles in the French society). These Jacobins came to be known as the sans-culottes, literally meaning ‘those without knee breeches’.

After the fall of the Jacobines, the middle class seized power and a Directory was appointed, which was an executive made up of five members.