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.
Date 4 September 1797 Location Paris, France Result Republican victory: End of the monarchist majority in the Parliament Repression of the Clichy Club Exile, deportation or imprisonment of several monarchists
Belligerents
French Directory:	Council of Ancients Council of Five Hundred
Commanders and leaders
Jean-François Reubell La Révellière Lazare Hoche	François-Marie, marquis de Barthélemy Lazare Carnot Boissy d'Anglas
Strength
80,000	216 royalist deputies
Casualties and losses
	61 civilians deported to French Guiana 18 imprisoned 3 runaways

Republican victory:

The Coup of 18 Fructidor, Year V, was a seizure of power by members of the French Directory on 4 September 1797 when their opponents, the Royalists, were gaining strength. Howard G. Brown, Professor of History at Binghamton University, stresses the turn toward dictatorship and the failure of liberal democracy under the Directory, blaming it on "chronic violence, ambivalent forms of justice, and repeated recourse to heavy-handed repression."

Three Directors, Paul Barras, Jean-François Rewbell and Louis Marie de La Révellière-Lépeaux, staged the coup d'état with support from the military. Royalist candidates had gained the great majority of seats in the recent elections, where a third of the seats were at stake. They were poised to win the next round of elections and assume control of the Directory.

Jean-Charles Pichegru, a figure widely assumed to be acting in sympathy to the monarchy and its restoration, was elected President of the Council of Five Hundred. After documentation of Pichegru's treasonous activities was supplied by Napoleon Bonaparte, the Directors accused the entire body of plotting against the Revolution and moved quickly to annul the elections and arrest the royalists.

To support the coup, General Lazare Hoche, then commander of the Army of Sambre-et-Meuse, arrived in the capital with his troops, while Napoleon sent an army under Pierre Augereau. Deputies were arrested and 53 were exiled to Cayenne in French Guiana. Since death from tropical disease was likely, it was referred to as the "dry guillotine". The 42 opposition newspapers were closed. The chambers were purged, and elections were partly cancelled.

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