Paul Barras (30 June 1755-29 January 1829) was Director of the French Directory from 5 October 1795 to 10 November 1799. Barras was the de facto ruler of France for four years, and he was overthrown by Napoleon Bonaparte in the Coup of 18 Brumaire in 1799.
Biography[]
Barras in 1795
Paul Barras was born in Fox-Amphoux, Provence, France on 30 June 1755 to a family of nobles. Barras served in the French Army in India during the American Revolutionary War, and he fought against Great Britain at Pondicherry. At the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789, he advocated the democratic cause, and he became an administrator of the Var department, his home. In January 1793, he voted for the execution of Louis XVI of France, but he sided with the plotters in the 1794 Thermidorian Reaction against Maximilien Robespierre, becoming a leader of the centrist Thermidorians. In 1795, he became the leader of the French Directory, an oligarchy that led France for four years. His immorality in both his public and private life led to Napoleon Bonaparte (the husband of Barras' former mistress Josephine de Beauharnais) facing little opposition during the Coup of 18 Brumaire, in which Barras and the Directory were overthrown. He lived the rest of his life in exile or censure, and he died in Paris in 1829 at the age of 73.