French Directory

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "French Directory" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (April 2020) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Directory of the First French Republic
Première République Directoire (French)
Style	"His Excellency"
Type	Directorial government
Status	Disestablished
Abbreviation	The Directory
Seat	Luxembourg Palace, Paris
Nominator	Council of Five Hundred
Appointer	Council of Ancients
Term length	Variable by election date
Constituting instrument	Constitution of the Year III
Precursor	Committee of Public Safety
Formation	26/31 October 1795
Abolished	10 November 1799
Succession	Executive Consulate

Part of a series on the
History of France
Timeline
Ancient Prehistory   Greek colonies 600 BC – 49 BC Celtic Gaul   until 50 BC Roman Gaul 50 BC – 486 AD
Middle Ages Francia and the Frankish settlement   Merovingians 481–751 Carolingians 751–987     West Francia 843–987 Kingdom of France 987–1792     Direct Capetians 987–1328     Valois 1328–1498
Early modern Ancien Régime Valois-Orléans kings 1498–1515 Valois-Angoulême kings 1515–1589 Bourbon kings 1589–1792
Long 19th century French Revolution 1789–1799 Kingdom of France 1791–1792 First Republic 1792–1804 First Empire 1804–1814 Restoration 1814–1830 July Monarchy 1830–1848 Second Republic 1848–1852 Second Empire 1852–1870 Third Republic 1870–1940     Belle Époque 1871–1914
20th century Third Republic 1870–1940     Interwar period 1919–1939         Années folles 1920–1929 Free France Vichy France 1940–1944 Provisional Republic 1944–1946 Fourth Republic 1946–1958 Fifth Republic 1958–present
Topics
Diplomacy Economy Health care Law LGBTQ Medicine Military Monarchs Consorts Politics Religion Christianity Islam Judaism Taxation Territory
France portal · History portal
v t e

The Directory (also called Directorate; French: le Directoire [diʁɛktwaʁ] ^ⓘ) was the governing five-member committee in the French First Republic from 26 October 1795 (4 Brumaire an IV) until November 1799, when it was overthrown by Napoleon Bonaparte in the Coup of 18 Brumaire and replaced by the Consulate. In mainstream historiography, the term Directoire is also used to refer to the period (i.e. from the dissolution of the National Convention on 26 October 1795 to Napoleon's coup d'état), coinciding with the final four years of the French Revolution.^[1]

The Directory was continually at war with foreign coalitions, including Britain, Austria, Prussia, the Kingdom of Naples, Russia and the Ottoman Empire. It annexed Belgium and the left bank of the Rhine, while Bonaparte conquered a large part of Italy. The Directory established 29 short-lived sister republics in Italy, Switzerland and the Netherlands. The conquered cities and states were required to send France huge amounts of money, as well as art treasures, which were used to fill the new Louvre museum in Paris. An army led by Bonaparte tried to conquer Egypt and marched as far as Saint-Jean-d'Acre in Syria. The Directory defeated a resurgence of the War in the Vendée, the royalist-led civil war in the Vendée region, but failed in its venture to support the Irish Rebellion of 1798 and create an Irish Republic.

The French economy was in continual crisis during the Directory. At the beginning, the treasury was empty; the paper money, the Assignat, had fallen to a fraction of its value, and prices soared. The Directory stopped printing assignats and restored the value of the money, but this caused a new crisis; prices and wages fell, and economic activity slowed to a standstill.

In its first two years, the Directory concentrated on ending the excesses of the Jacobin Reign of Terror; mass executions stopped, and measures taken against exiled priests and royalists were relaxed. The Jacobin political club was closed on 12 November 1794 and the government crushed an armed uprising planned by the Jacobins and an early socialist revolutionary, François-Noël Babeuf, known as "Gracchus Babeuf". But after the discovery of a royalist conspiracy including a prominent general, Jean-Charles Pichegru, the Jacobins took charge of the new Councils and hardened the measures against the Church and émigrés. They took two additional seats in the Directory, hopelessly dividing it.

In 1799, after several defeats, French victories in the Netherlands and Switzerland restored the French military position, but the Directory had lost all the political factions' support, including some of its Directors. Bonaparte returned from Egypt in October, and was engaged by Abbé Sieyès and others to carry out a parliamentary coup d'état on 9–10 November 1799. The coup abolished the Directory and replaced it with the French Consulate led by Bonaparte.