Council of Five Hundred

Council of Five Hundred, lower house of the Corps Législatif, the legislative body established by France’s Constitution of 1795 (Year III of the French Revolution). It consisted of 500 delegates, who were elected by limited, indirect suffrage, and was charged with initiating legislation, which the upper house, the Council of Ancients, was empowered to accept or reject. In addition, the Council of Five Hundred provided the upper house with a list of candidates from which the five members of the Directory, the executive branch, were to be chosen. The council governed from 1795 to 1799 (the period known as the Directory), when it was dissolved in a coup that effectively ended the French Revolution.

The constitution outlined the process by which delegates would be elected to the legislature. It mandated that citizens meet in assemblies in each canton to choose a group of electors, who were required to be at least 25 years of age, to own or rent property, and to pay a substantial level of taxes. These electors then chose the delegates to both houses of the legislature. Those eligible to sit in the lower house were required to be at least 30 years old. However, a supplemental decree also required that two-thirds of the members of the first iteration of the legislative body be drawn from members of the National Convention (the previous governing body); this was an attempt to prevent either left-wing Jacobins or royalists from dominating the legislature. Following the first election, which took place in November 1795, elections for one-third of each body were to be held annually, with the delegates serving three-year terms.

In the April 1797 elections, royalists won a significant number of seats in the Council of Five Hundred, and Charles Pichegru, an ally of the rightists, was chosen as president of the body. The more-centrist republicans responded to the threat of a rightward turn in government with the Coup of 18 Fructidor, in which two members of the Directory and more than 50 royalist members of the legislature were expelled with the help of the army. In addition, electoral results were annulled in 49 departments. The power of the Directory was expanded, and the control of the electorate over the direction of government was decreased.

In the election of 1798, left-wing candidates made gains, in spite of attempts by the members of the Directory to manipulate the election, and the republicans were again alarmed. In the Coup of 22 Floréal, the Directory successfully pressured leaders in the legislative body to expel 127 of the newly elected delegates. Following more Jacobin victories in the election of 1799, however, the members of the Council of Five Hundred refused to submit to a purge by the Directory and instead forced the Directory to agree to the replacement of three of its members in what became known as the Coup of 30 Prairial. In addition, Lucien Bonaparte was elected president of the Council of Five Hundred.

The Directory, however, came under the control of Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès, who viewed the system as dangerously unstable. He conspired with Napoleon Bonaparte for the overthrow of the government. The two legislative bodies convened in the palace at Saint-Cloud on November 10, 1799. The members of the Directory all resigned (three of them voluntarily), and Bonaparte then addressed the Council of Ancients, telling them that the Directory had ended. The Council of Five Hundred, aware of the armed forces gathering outside, protested violently, and troops were sent in to disperse the deputies in the Coup of 18–19 Brumaire. The coup marked the end of Council of Five Hundred and of the Directory system of government.