Council of Elders

Council of Elders

https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/1078/

1078

The upper house of the legislature established by the Constitution of 1795. The Council of Five Hundred was the lower house. Deputies were elected (indirectly) to three-year terms. There was a major shift in the political views of the deputies selected in each election. Royalists did well in the Year V (1797), and the Jacobins recovered in the Year VI (1798). Each time the executive, known as the Directory, moved to arrest or exclude significant numbers of deputies. The councils staged their own coup in June 1799. Dissatisfied, a group led by Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès in turn planned their own coup, which took place on 18 Brumaire, Year VIII (9 November 1799) that put Napoleon Bonaparte in power.