X-Nico

5 unusual facts about Council of Five Hundred


Antoine Jacques Claude Joseph, comte Boulay de la Meurthe

He represented La Meurthe in the Council of Five Hundred, of which he was twice president, but his views developed steadily in the conservative direction.

François Louis Bourdon

In the Council of Five Hundred under the French Directory, Bourdon belonged to the party of Clichyens, composed of crypto-Royalists, against whom the directors used the 18 Fructidor coup.

Louis Gustave le Doulcet, comte de Pontécoulant

Doulcet was subsequently elected to the French Directory's Council of Five Hundred, but was suspected of Royalist sympathies, and had to spend some time in retirement between anti-monarchist coup of 18 Fructidor (4 September 1797) and the establishment of the Consulate (the 18 Brumaire coup of 9 November 1799).

Louis-Jérôme Gohier

Gohier was Minister of Justice from March 1793 to April 1794, overseeing the arrest of Girondists, and, a member of the Council of Five Hundred, he succeeded Jean Baptiste Treilhard in the French Directory (June 1799), where he represented the Republican view in front of growing Royalist opposition.

Pierre Claude François Daunou

It is probably because of his Girondinism that the Council of the Ancients was given the right of convoking the Council of Five Hundred outside Paris, an expedient which made possible Napoleon Bonaparte's coup d'état (the 18 Brumaire in 1799).


Lucien Bonaparte

As president of the Council of Five Hundred — which he removed to the suburban security of Saint-Cloud — Lucien Bonaparte's combination of bravado and disinformation was crucial to the coup d'état of 18 Brumaire (date based on the French Revolutionary Calendar) in which General Bonaparte overthrew the government of the Directory to replace it by the Consulate.


see also

Pierre Claude François Daunou

His was instrumental in crushing the Royalist insurgency known as the 13 Vendémiaire, and the important place he occupied at the beginning of the period is indicated by the fact that he was elected by twenty-seven départements as member of the Council of Five Hundred, and became its first president.