Paul François Barras Biography

Dromo's Den

BARRAS, Paul François Jean Nicolas, Count de (1755-1329). A distinguished character of the French Revolution. He was born in Provence and in his youth served as a lieutenant against the British in India. He eagerly joined the Revolutionary party, but was not, as is generally but erroneously stated, a member of the States-General in 1739. He was actively concerned in the storming of the Bastile and the Tuileries, and was appointed administrator of the department of War and afterward of the county of Nice. In the Convention he voted for the execution of the King, without delay or appeal, and on May 31, 1793, declared against the Girondists. The siege of Toulon, and the triumph of the Revolutionary party in the south of France, were in a great measure owing to his activity and energy; and after the victory he was deeply concerned in all the bloody measures that were adopted. Yet he was hated by Robespierre and the Terrorists as one of the less-decided Revolutionists; and their overthrow was accomplished mainly by him, the Convention appointing him commander in chief and virtually investing him with a dictatorship for the time. While holding this high office, in which he acted with great decision and vigor, and on the same day on which Robespierre fell (9 Thermidor, July 27, 1794), he paid a visit to the Temple and provided for the better treatment of the King's. son. He hastened also to the Palais de Justice and suspended the order for the execution of a large number of persons who had been condemned to death. On subsequent occasions, as president of the Convention, he acted with decision both against the intrigues of the Royalists and the excesses of the Jacobins; and on 13th Vendémiaire (Oct. 5, 1795), being again appointed commander in chief by the Convention, he called his young friend Bonaparte to his aid and crushed the sections with merciless discharges of artillery. The Directory being appointed in November, 1795, Barras was nominated one of the five members, and in this capacity he procured the nomination of Bonaparte as commander in chief of the army in Italy. It was he who arranged the marriage of Bonaparte with the widow Beauharnais after 18th Fructidor (see FRUCTIDOR; FRANCE), Sept. 4, 1797, when the Royalist intrigues were crushed by Napoleon, the authority of Barras became preponderant in the Directory, and he affected the pomp of a king, and began to give splendid entertainments in the palace of the Luxembourg. This continued for about two years, till the decline of the power of the Directory. After the 30th Prairial (June 18, 1799) Sieyès and he had the whole executive power in their hands; and while Barras secretly negotiated, it is said, with the Bourbon princes, demanding a large reward for their restoration, Sieyès, in secret understanding with Bonaparte, brought about the Revolution of 18th Brumaire (Nov. 9, 1799), which replaced the Directory by the Consulate. Notwithstanding the favors he had formerly conferred on Bonaparte, he was now, perhaps unavoidably, an object of suspicion to him; was compelled to remove from the neighborhood of Paris; resided in Brussels, then in Marseilles; was banished to Rome, and then sent to Montpellier, being kept under constant surveillance of the police and actually found to have been engaged in conspiracies for the restoration of the Bourbons. After the Restoration he returned to Paris and purchased an estate in the neighborhood, where he died. After remaining inaccessible for nearly 70 years, his memoirs were published in Paris and New York, 1895-96. They are of the first importance in throwing light on the history of the Revolution.

The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol II (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 703-704.