Sans Culottes literally means: without pants. Men who were dressed poorly and shabby (almost like a homeless person) were called sans culottes. During the French revolution this clothing style became popular and soon almost all men supporting the revolution wore shabby clothing a la sans culottes.

Sans-culottes means "without culottes." Culottes were a style of pants that aristocrats, nobles, and rich people wore before the revolution in France. The revolution was led by the third estate, aka the peasants and the poor people, because they were being treated poorly and unfairly by everyone else. The sans-culottes were people who were making a point to not wear culottes in order to support the revolution.

there were about 5,000 of them there were about 5,000 of them

me ;(

By 1791, many sans-culottes demanded a republic, or government ruled by elected officials instead of a monarch.