The Directory was the governing five-member committee in the French First Republic from 26 October 1795 until 10 November 1799, when it was overthrown by Napoleon Bonaparte in the Coup of 18 Brumaire and replaced by the Consulate. Directoire is the name of the final four years of the French Revolution. Mainstream historiography also uses the term in reference to the period from the dissolution of the National Convention on 26 October 1795 to Napoleon's coup d’état.
The Society of the Friends of the Constitution, renamed the Society of the Jacobins, Friends of Freedom and Equality after 1792 and commonly known as the Jacobin Club or simply the Jacobins, was the most influential political club during the French Revolution of 1789. The period of its political ascendancy includes the Reign of Terror, during which well over 10,000 people were put on trial and executed in France, many for political crimes.
The following is a timeline of the French Revolution.
The National Convention was the constituent assembly of the Kingdom of France for one day and the French First Republic for its first three years during the French Revolution, following the two-year National Constituent Assembly and the one-year Legislative Assembly. Created after the great insurrection of 10 August 1792, it was the first French government organized as a republic, abandoning the monarchy altogether. The Convention sat as a single-chamber assembly from 20 September 1792 to 26 October 1795.
The Consulate was the top-level government of France from the fall of the Directory in the coup of 18 Brumaire on 10 November 1799 until the start of the Napoleonic Empire on 18 May 1804. By extension, the term The Consulate also refers to this period of French history.
In the historiography of the French Revolution, the Thermidorian Reaction is the common term for the period between the ousting of Maximilien Robespierre on 9 Thermidor II, or 27 July 1794, and the inauguration of the French Directory on 2 November 1795.
Jean-Lambert Tallien was a French politician of the revolutionary period. Though initially an active agent of the Reign of Terror, he eventually clashed with its leader, Maximilien Robespierre, and is best known as one of the key figures of the Thermidorian Reaction that led to the fall of Robespierre and the end of the Terror.
This glossary of the French Revolution generally does not explicate names of individual people or their political associations; those can be found in List of people associated with the French Revolution.
The Council of Five Hundred, or simply the Five Hundred, was the lower house of the legislature of France under the Constitution of the Year III. It existed during the period commonly known as the Directory (Directoire), from 31 October 1795 until 9 November 1799: roughly the second half of the period generally referred to as the French Revolution.
The Law of 22 Floréal Year VI was a law—arguably constituting a bloodless coup—passed on 11 May 1798 by which 106 left-wing deputies were deprived of their seats in the Council of Five Hundred, the lower house of the legislature under the French Directory. Following the Coup of Fructidor, the power of the Monarchists and the Royalists was largely broken. However, in order to do this, the Directory needed to rely on support from the Left.
The French Directory election of 1795 was held between 12 and 21 October 1795, which saw 1/3 of the directory elected according to the Constitution of the Year III. The election was the first election under the new Directory regime, and first election where the Thermidorians would win.
The White Terror was a period during the French Revolution in 1795 when a wave of violent attacks swept across much of France. The victims of this violence were people identified as being associated with the Reign of Terror – followers of Robespierre and Marat, and members of local Jacobin clubs. The violence was perpetrated primarily by those whose relatives or associates had been victims of the Great Terror, or whose lives and livelihoods had been threatened by the government and its supporters before the Thermidorean Reaction. Principally, these were, in Paris, the Muscadins, and in the countryside, monarchists, supporters of the Girondins, those who opposed the Civil Constitution of the Clergy and those otherwise hostile to the Jacobin political agenda.
The Coup of 18 Fructidor, Year V, was a seizure of power in France by members of the Directory, the government of the French First Republic, with support from the French military. The coup was provoked by the results of elections held months earlier, which had given the majority of seats in the country's Corps législatif to royalist candidates, threatening a restoration of the monarchy and a return to the ancien régime. Three of the five members of the Directory, Paul Barras, Jean-François Rewbell and Louis Marie de La Révellière-Lépeaux, with support of foreign minister Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, staged the coup d'état that annulled many of the previous election's results and ousted the monarchists from the legislature.
The Thermidorians, known also a Thermidorian Convention was a French political group active during the French Revolution between 1794 and 1799.
The insurrection of 12 Germinal Year III was a popular revolt in Paris on 1 April 1795 against the policies of the Thermidorian Convention. It was provoked by poverty and hunger resulting from the abandonment of the controlled economy after dismantling of the Revolutionary Government during Thermidorian Reaction.
Jean-Baptiste Clauzel was a French politician. In 1790, he was elected mayor of his hometown. In 1791, his countrymen sent him sit in the Legislative Assembly where he was very discreet. In 1792, he was re-elected to the Convention by the department of Ariege he sided on the Mountain. At the trial of Louis XVI in January 1793, this "royalist" vote the king's death, without suspension ruled against the appeal of the people. He did not vote the impeachment of Jean-Paul Marat while claiming to be "far from approving all the principles of the Revolution espoused by his fanatic friend." Despite his opposition to the Girondins, he vote by MPs maintenance allowances to Members under arrest. His served as a representative on mission to the Army of the Pyrenees (West) from the end of August 1793 when he was recalled to Paris. He was among those who organized the downfall of Maximilien Robespierre. After 9 Thermidor Year II he joined the Committee of General Security, and supported the closing of the Jacobin Clubs. An active Thermidorian, he showed a readiness during the insurrection of the 1st Prairial. He denounced and arrested the "last Montagnards and called for the arrest of Bertrand Barrere, Jacques Nicolas Billaud-Varenne and Jean-Marie Collot. Returned to the army of the Pyrenees, he found it disgracefully disorganized and unable to fight.
The French Directory election of 1799 was held between 9 and 16 April 1799 to elect one-third of the Council of Five Hundred in addition to the Council of Elders and any vacant seats.
The French Directory election of 1797 was held between 21 March and 2 April 1797 to elect a third of the Legislative Body of the Directory, that is to say 2/3 of the lower house, the Council of Five Hundred and the upper house, the Council of Ancients. The 1797 election marks the beginning of the 1/3 vote of its type. An election occurs each year with a third of the deputies up for election.
