Incroyables and Merveilleuses, of the renewal of the Cane

The Muscadins and the fashion

This is what we learn from the History of Costume in France, published in 1877:

In the presence of the eccentricities of which the revolution leaders made the exhibition, the majority of people didn't give up the right to work their costume as they meant.

The fashion, under the Terror *, gradually made its way toward the transformation that will be accomplished when comes the Directoire.

The Muscadins, not so haughty at the beginning of 1794, quickly took back the pride of the place.

They adopted the grey tail coat and the green tie; they willingly agreed to be seen as having vague monarchist impulse.

They had exchanged the switch, to which they owe their deportment, for the bludgeon, their "executive power" said they.

Fréron organized them in gangs, with the assignment to hammer the Jacobins and the sans-culottes down the streets. Mercier asserts that they received more punches than they strocked with their stick; and that their league died beneath the weight of the contempt which the patriots and the royalists as well poured upon them. The muscadins were never so many."

The shoes On costume's plates, taken from from prints from Boilly, Bouillon, Debucourt and Lesueur, we may see that the shoes are turned down boots, already in use during the reign of Louis XVI.

The buckle less shoes have low hills and strong clogs. The stockings are striped, as well as the gloves, in two or three colors.

The cap with cockade The democrats adopted the "Red cap", old freedom symbol that was used by the Romans when they emancipated their slaves, then they adopted the red edged cap, in blue woollen. The Marquis de Villette says of this patriotic head-gear : " Now that France has recovered its freedom, this hat is the civic crown of the free citizen and of the regenerated French".

The wig Well turned men carefully continue to wear the wig slightly powdered that is "à frimas" (wintry); those exhibiting advanced opinions bear their natural hair.

The top crowned round hat The cocked hat disappears and is replaced by the round hat, top crowned, decorated with a silk cockade. The ribbon that surrounds the crown is named "Bourdaloue".

After the speech of Camille Desmoulins at the Palais-Royal, the badge exhibited is at first green (leaves of the tree), then the blue and the red of the town of Paris, to which was added the white , after the storming of the Bastille.

The cocked hat The accessory needed by an elegant is a strong Cane, rigged up with a cat gut , concealing a sword blade.

Low "Cocked hat" with cockade.

* Terror is the name given, in France, to the period in the course of which the revolutionary government exercised its omnipotence to silence with the utmost rigor those who hindered its work. August 10, 1792 marks the begining of the period; it starts really with the May, August and September, 1793 exception laws to end by 9 Thermidor Year II (27 July 1794). Source: Larousse Paris, 1931.



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