Page:Englishmen in the French Revolution.djvu/64

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44
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.

confined to indoor use; and at the club they seem to have been restricted to the president, the assessors or secretaries, and the speakers while on their legs. Pigott, however, was plainly the introducer, if not of the bonnet rouge, yet of the bonnet; for the Chateauvieux mutineers, to whom it is generally attributed, did not enter Paris till June, three months afterwards. It is true that the cap of liberty had been a symbol employed from the outset of the Revolution, but it was Pigott who made it an article of dress. He had probably quitted Paris by the summer, when it was revived, and this time undoubtedly worn outdoors, sometimes placed on the back of the head, like that of a Zouave of the present day, sometimes placed on the top of the head with the end slightly lapping over in front. Of Pigott nothing more is heard till his death at Toulouse, July 7, 1794, three weeks before Robespierre's fall. He was fifty-eight years of age, is said to have had a son who predeceased him, and left a widow, Antoinette Bontau, possibly the Mrs. Pigott who was living at Geneva in 1807–15.

There were two other Pigotts who sympathised with the Revolution, but what relation they were to Robert is not clear. Charles, the author of some plays and pamphlets, including a reply to Burke, died in London a fortnight before Robert, and was buried at Chetwynd. A John Pigott, dining at the London Coffee-house, September 30, 1793, in com-