How did the sans-culottes help create the new society in the french revolution?
Because they were the masses that carried the revolution. While intellectuals gave the ideas it were the poor masses (the sans cultottes) that were the soldiers of the revolutionary army, played a crucial role in such events as the September massacres of 1792, and supported the most radical left-wing factions in successive revolutionary governments. During the Reign of Terror, they provided important support for Maximilien Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety; in March 1794. The influence of the sans-culottes ceased with the reaction that followed the fall of Robespierre (July 1794), and the name itself became proscribed. Without effective leadership of their own, and no longer allied with the Jacobins, the sans-culottes largely ceased to be a major factor in French politics.
