Set of buttons

The figures depicted are of members of the french nobility and middle-class, which in 1792 defended the royal family opposing themselves against the revolutionary movements and excesses. With the 1789 revolution, political symbolism entered the attire of the French; the revolutionary partisans refused the use of knee breeches typically worn by the aristocracy (culottes), instead they adopted the long trousers worn by workers (from which originates the name sans-culottes).