Editing Paul Barras (section)

==Thermidor and the Directory==
{{unreferencedsect|date=September 2023}}
[[File:Ci-devant Occupations; or, Madame Talian and the Empress Josephine Dancing Naked before Barrass in the Winter of 1797. - A Fact! MET DP116255.jpg|thumb|[[James Gillray]]'s caricature of 1805. Barras being entertained by the naked dancing of two wives of prominent men, [[Thérésa Tallien]] and [[Joséphine Bonaparte]]. On the right, [[Napoleon Bonaparte]] takes a peek.]]

In 1794, Barras sided with the men who sought to overthrow [[Maximilien Robespierre]]'s faction. The [[Thermidorian Reaction]] of 27 July 1794 made him rise to prominence. In the next year, when the Convention felt threatened by the malcontent [[National Guard (France)|National Guards]] of Paris, it appointed Barras to command the troops engaged in its defence. His nomination of Bonaparte led to the adoption of violent measures, ensuring the dispersion of royalists and other malcontents in the streets near the [[Tuileries Palace]], remembered as the ''[[13 Vendémiaire]]'' (5 October 1795). Subsequently, Barras became one of the five [[French Directory|Directors]] who controlled the executive of the [[First French Republic|French Republic]].

Owing to his intimate relations with [[Joséphine de Beauharnais]], Barras helped to facilitate a marriage between her and Bonaparte. Some of his contemporaries alleged that this was the reason behind Barras's nomination of Bonaparte to the [[French Revolutionary Wars: Campaigns of 1796|command of the army of Italy]] early in the year 1796. Bonaparte's success gave the Directory unprecedented stability, and when, in the summer of 1797, the royalist and surviving [[Girondist]] opposition again met the government with resistance, Bonaparte sent General [[Charles-Pierre Augereau]], a [[Jacobin Club|Jacobin]], to repress their movement in the [[Coup of 18 Fructidor]] (4 September 1797).