Madame Tussaud

Cachot: an underground cell, dungeon.

Cahiers de doleances: lists of grievances drawn up in early 1789 by regional bodies representing all three estates (clergy, nobility, and commoners). The proposals for reform were put before the Estates-General and the king.

Caissier: a cashier.

Caliper: a device for measuring small distances with accuracy.

Champ-de-Mars: Paris’s principal military parade grounds, on the left bank of the Seine (similar in purpose and name to Rome’s Campus Martius). This was the site of the Fete de la Federation on the anniversary of the fall of the Bastille, as well as the massacre of July 17, 1791.

Chemise: a woman’s undergarment, often made of linen. It was designed to look like a short dress with elbow-length sleeves.

Chemise gown: Also known as the chemise a la reine, this dress was made popular by Marie Antoinette. It was made of a light, flowing fabric (linen or white muslin), which did not require a corset, prompting the public to accuse the queen of appearing in her chemise, or undergarments. While all fashionable young women adopted the style, the queen was criticized mercilessly for wearing these gowns. The portrait of her by Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrun dressed in this attire created such an outcry that it had to be removed from the Royal Salon.

Coach-and-eight: a large, typically royal, coach pulled by eight horses.

Cockade: a colored ribbon, worn as a badgelike ornament.

Cocotte: a whore.

Committee of Public Safety: the twelve-member group (chaired by Robespierre during the Terror) that, between 1793 and 1795, wielded executive power.

Commode: a small cabinet or chest of drawers.

Coquine: a naughty, mischievous woman.

Cordeliers: an ultraradical club founded by Danton, Marat, Hebert, and Ronsin that had a populist appeal among both sexes.

Corvee: a tax paid in manual labor to the crown during the ancien regime. Peasants were typically required to work a number of days per year on roads and in other public service.

Cravat: a neckband often trimmed with ruffles or lace.

Culottes: knee breeches.

Dauphin: the heir to the throne of France.

Deputy: an elected or nominated member of a government or committee.

Eaux de proprete: lotions used for personal cleanliness.

Emigres: the tens of thousand of mostly aristocratic exiles who left France after the fall of the monarchy. Many plotted a counterrevolution and their eventual return.

Estates: the three orders of society: clergy, nobility, and commoners.

Estates-General: an assembly summoned in 1789 to advise the king at Versailles on issues of finance and politics. It comprised roughly one-half commoners and one-fourth each clergy and nobility.

Fauteuil: a chair with arms.

Fete: a grand celebration or party.

Fichu: a kerchief worn in front of a lady’s bodice.

Firedogs: metal instruments designed to hold wood inside a fireplace.

Gaul: the Roman provinces corresponding to the modern countries of Belgium, France, and Switzerland.

Grand Couvert: an antechamber in the queen’s apartment.

Heder: a Jewish children’s school, often in the home of the rabbi.

Holy Roman Emperor: the official title of the man who was King of Hungary, Archduke of Austria, and Grand Duke of Tuscany.

Hotel de Ville: city hall.

Jacobin Club: a revolutionary group that met in a former Jacobin (Dominican) monastery on the Rue Saint-Honore. The Club became a focus of increasing radicalism, and chapters spread throughout France. Widely seen as the incubator of the Terror, the Paris chapter was closed by the National Convention in 1794.

Laiterie: a dairy.

Legislative Assembly: the political body that succeeded the National Assembly in 1791 and ended with the declaration of the French Republic a year later.

Lettres de cachet: Hated symbols of the monarchy, these were sealed instructions directly from the king that had the power to, among much else, imprison without trial. Voltaire was famously incarcerated in the Bastille by one of these documents.

Libelles: satirical pamphlets noted for their biting political attacks.

Libellistes: writers and publishers of libelles.

Livre: a unit of currency (divided into twenty sous) originally valued at one pound of silver.

Maquereau: a pimp.

Marchande: a merchant.

Menage: a household unit.

Muff: a fashion accessory usually made of fur and used as a hand warmer.

Muscadins: anti-Jacobin street touts, often armed with metal clubs and known for their foppish dress.

National Convention: After the fall of the monarchy in 1792, this seven-hundred-member body was elected to write a Constitution.

National Guard: citizens’ militias that spontaneously arose to defend cities from the outbursts of street crime and mob violence during the Revolution.

Orangerie: similar to a greenhouse, a building where orange trees and other fruits could be grown.

Panniers: hoops intended to extend the sides of a skirt while leaving both the front and the back flat. The hips were widened dramatically to display the fine embroidery or painting on a dress.

Patrie: country, fatherland.

Peyos: sidelocks worn by Orthodox Jews.

Robe a la francaise: a satin dress with a tight-fitting bodice and a voluminous, hooped skirt.

Salle: a room.

Sans-culottes: the trouser-wearing commoners, who preferred this simpler dress style to the knee breeches of the upper classes.

Santons: “little saints” or clay nativity scenes that came to replace the larger but banned church displays in revolutionary France.

Sou: a coin valued at one-twentieth of a livre.

Tableau: an arranged scene.

Tabouret: a padded stool.

Taille: a direct tax by the crown, levied on land owned by commoners.

Third Estate: the common people, as opposed to the clergy (First Estate) and the nobility (Second Estate).