Coup of 18 Brumaire

The Coup of 18 Brumaire (9–10 November 1799) overthrew the French Directory and brought Napoleon Bonaparte to power, ending the Revolution. Returning unexpectedly from Egypt to a bankrupt and unpopular government, Bonaparte allied with the director Sieyès, his brother Lucien, Talleyrand and Fouché. On 18 Brumaire the conspirators moved the councils to Saint-Cloud under military guard; when the Council of Five Hundred resisted the next day, grenadiers cleared the hall and the Directory was dissolved. A provisional consulate of Bonaparte, Sieyès and Ducos took over, and the Constitution of the Year VIII soon made Bonaparte First Consul with real power. The coup is the hinge between the Revolution and the Napoleonic era: it preserved revolutionary equality before the law while restoring strong authority, and it launched fifteen years of personal rule. The Constitution that followed was approved by plebiscite, though the official count was inflated to suggest far broader support than the vote had shown.