Follow Paul François Jean Nicolas Barras through 143 dated historical records for France.
A chronological timeline drawn from matching World History Database records.
Barras served as president of the Convention during February 1795. The office required him to manage deliberations as the Republic struggled with food shortages and factional agitation.
Role range: 1795-1799
Barras supported the transformation from the Convention to a new bicameral legislature and five-member Directory. The arrangement sought to prevent a return to either one-person monarchy or single-assembly rule.
Role range: 1795-1799
The Convention's troops dispersed royalist insurgents on 13 Vendémiaire after fighting in central Paris. Barras's command protected the republican transition and enhanced his political position.
Role range: 1795-1799
With Napoleon establishes the Directory
Role range: 1793-1799
Appointed Member of Directory
Role range: 1793-1799 – 1795-1799
Appointed Member of Directory
Barras served as a witness at the civil marriage of Napoleon Bonaparte and Josephine de Beauharnais.
Role range: 1795-1799 – 1795-1799
Barras supported the decision that placed Bonaparte in command of the Army of Italy before the 1796 campaign.
Role range: 1795-1799 – 1795-1799
The discovery of Babeuf's Conspiracy of Equals threatened the Directory from the radical left. Barras belonged to an executive that sought to prevent insurrection while maintaining a republican constitutional framework.
Role range: 1795-1799
The territorial mandate failed to stabilize French currency after the assignat's collapse. Barras and his fellow Directors governed amid inflation, depleted state credit and popular distress.
Role range: 1795-1799
Barras held a rotating presidency of the Executive Directory beginning in late 1796. The position was temporary and did not make him a constitutional single head of state.
Role range: 1795-1799
Successes by Bonaparte's army brought acclaim to the Directory that had appointed him. Barras benefited politically from the military successes of an officer with whom he had long been connected.
Role range: 1795-1799
Barras backed Bonaparte's advancement as the Directory chose leadership for the Italian campaign. The appointment placed a general he knew from Vendémiaire in charge of a major offensive army.
Role range: 1795-1799
Barras acted as a witness to the civil marriage of Napoleon Bonaparte and Joséphine de Beauharnais. The connection illustrated the overlap of personal alliances and government patronage in the Directory.
Role range: 1795-1799
Barras confronted a legislature strengthened by royalist electoral gains and increasingly feared a reversal of the republican settlement.
Role range: 1795-1799 – 1795-1799
During the Fructidor coup, forces supporting Barras arrested leading royalist deputies and Director Barthelemy.
Role range: 1795-1799 – 1795-1799
Barras backed the coup of 18 Fructidor and used troops under Augereau to remove royalist opponents from political power.
Role range: 1795-1799 – 1795-1799
After the Fructidor coup, Barras helped end the peace negotiations with Britain that had been taking place at Lille.
Role range: 1795-1799 – 1795-1799
During Fructidor, François Barthélemy was arrested as the victorious faction expelled its executive opponents. Barras's alliance enforced the Directory's political reorganization with military support.
Role range: 1795-1799
General Augereau was brought to Paris to support the Directors preparing action against their political opponents. His soldiers supplied the force required to override parliamentary resistance.
Role range: 1795-1799
Barras portrayed conservative political networks as participants in a royalist threat and argued that extraordinary measures were necessary to protect the Republic.
Role range: 1795-1799
The defeat of conservative opponents increased Barras's influence among the Directors. Yet the victory made the executive more dependent on the armed forces used to protect it.
Role range: 1795-1799
The Fructidor coup forced Lazare Carnot to flee France after he opposed the planned purge. His removal ended a major challenge to Barras within the executive.
Role range: 1795-1799
Disputes about political clubs increased hostility between the councils and the Directory as Barras sought to preserve a favorable republican political network.
Role range: 1795-1799
The Fructidor laws authorized deportation of selected opponents without normal judicial safeguards, establishing punishment by political decree.
Role range: 1795-1799
Fructidor secured Barras in office but exposed how readily the government resorted to military intervention when constitutional politics turned against it.
Role range: 1795-1799
Barras and allied Directors concluded that normal legislative bargaining might not prevent a conservative takeover and prepared to employ armed pressure.
Role range: 1795-1799
The surviving councils invalidated elections in many departments, replacing electoral outcomes with a parliament favorable to the executive.
Role range: 1795-1799
By invalidating votes cast only months earlier, the ruling Directors undermined public confidence that representative institutions could change policy peacefully.
Role range: 1795-1799
Barras backed abandoning negotiations that no longer served the Directorys political and strategic calculations after the September intervention.
Role range: 1795-1799
After the coup the Directors received powers restricting press activity, weakening the newspapers that had supported the conservative opposition.
Role range: 1795-1799
On 4 September Barras and his allies launched the operation known as the coup of 18 Fructidor to defeat their elected opponents.
Role range: 1795-1799
Barras helped organize the coup of 18 Fructidor that removed royalist-associated deputies and hostile Directors. The intervention preserved his faction's control while undermining constitutional restraints.
Role range: 1795-1799
Following Fructidor, the surviving legislative councils invalidated contested electoral returns and approved deportations. Barras gained political security through measures that curtailed the independence of elected representatives.
Role range: 1795-1799
The Fructidor settlement revived strict action against returning emigres, with the executive treating their presence as a security danger.
Role range: 1795-1799
Barras supported exceptional decrees that excluded opposition parliamentarians and reversed the electorate's recent gains.
Role range: 1795-1799
The April elections increased the influence of monarchist sympathizers in the councils, leading Barras to fear that the republican executive could be displaced.
Role range: 1795-1799
Elections brought more conservative deputies into both legislative councils in 1797. Barras feared their influence could dismantle republican protections and weaken the Directory.
Role range: 1795-1799
Barras again occupied the Directory's rotating presidency late in 1797. The office brought ceremonial prominence while decisions continued to require cooperation among the five Directors.
Role range: 1795-1799
Barras aligned with Rewbell and La Révellière-Lépeaux against Carnot and Barthélemy. Their disagreement centered on whether force should be used to confront the elected royalist opposition.
Role range: 1795-1799
These dates and descriptions come from the historical_events database. Exact duplicate records have been collapsed. Names are grouped by the country, Name 2 and Name 1 fields; records with missing Name 2 cannot be reliably assigned to an individual biography. Check the underlying sources before formal citation.