Coup of 18 Fructidor

Coup of 18 Fructidor
Part of the French Revolution

Acting for the coup's leaders, General Pierre Augereau stormed the Tuileries Palace to arrest Charles Pichegru and others accused of plotting a counter-revolution.
Date4 September 1797
Location
Paris, France
Result

Republican victory:

  • End of the monarchist majority in the legislative chambers
  • Suppression of the Clichy Club
  • Exile, deportation or imprisonment of several monarchists
Belligerents
French Directory Royalists in the
Council of Ancients
and the
Council of Five Hundred
Commanders and leaders

Political:
Jean-François Reubell
Louis Marie de La Révellière-Lépeaux
Paul Barras

Military:
Pierre Augereau
Lazare Hoche		 François-Marie Barthélemy
Charles Pichegru
François Barbé-Marbois[1]
Strength
30,000 soldiers[1] 216 royalist deputies[citation needed]
Casualties and losses

The Coup of 18 Fructidor, Year V (4 September 1797 in the French Republican Calendar), 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.[2] 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 (Legislative body) to royalist candidates, threatening a restoration of the monarchy and a return to the ancien régime.[3] 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,[4] staged the coup d'état that annulled many of the previous election's results and ousted the monarchists from the legislature.[5]

  1. ^ a b "coup d'État du 18 fructidor an V". Larousse (in French). Retrieved 11 June 2021.
  2. ^ Doyle, William (2002). The Oxford History of the French Revolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 330. ISBN 978-0-19-925298-5.
  3. ^ Manière, Fabienne. "4 septembre 1797 - Coup d'État de Fructidor". Horodote (in French). Retrieved 11 June 2021.
  4. ^ Bernard, pp. 193–194.
  5. ^ Hall Stewart, John (1951). A Documentary Survey of the French Revolution (adapted). New York: Macmillan.