Paul Barras

Born June 30, 1755, in Fox-Amphoux; died Jan. 29, 1829, in Chaillot. A figure of the Great French Revolution. A nobleman.

Barras was elected to the Convention in September 1792 and voted for the death sentence for King Louis XVI. He joined the Jacobins. As a commissar of the Convention, he participated in the suppression of the royalist rebellion in Toulon (1793). An unprincipled politician and a careerist who was constantly striving for personal enrichment, Barras was one of the organizers of the counterrevolutionary Ther-midorian coup d’etat (July 27–28, 1794). During the rule of the Directory, he was a member of all its convocations. Barras helped to promote Napoleon Bonaparte. Nevertheless, after the coup d’etat of the 18th of Brumaire (Nov. 9–10, 1799) he was barred from political life.