Coup of the 30th Prairial VII

The coup of the 30th Prairial VII , also known as Revenge of the councils (, revenge of the Conseils') known, was a bloodless coup in France, which took place on 18 June 1799 30 Prairial Year VII of the French revolutionary calendar. He left Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès as the dominant figure in the French government and set the stage for the coup of 18th Brumaire VIII that brought Napoleon Bonaparte to power.

Pre-events

The elections from March to April 1799 of 315 new deputies to the two councils had produced a new neo-Jacobin majority ( Club du Manège ) in these two bodies, especially in the lower house . The Council of Five Hundred - the lower house in the legislature under the French Constitution - was dissatisfied with the conduct of the Second Coalition War by the directors and, in particular, with the recall of General Jean Étienne Championnet , a former Jacobin.

The Council of Elders and the Council of Five Hundred voted on a law making the election of director Jean-Baptiste Treilhard illegal and replaced him on 29th Prairial / 17th June by Louis Gohier , a former Jacobin MP and Minister during the French Convention.

The coup

However, the councils were not satisfied with its removal. The new anti-Jacobin director Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès, to some extent, shared the views of the councils, and if he did, it likely helped him in his new appointment in May 1799. He was glad that his colleagues had been removed and was perfectly ready to to work with the Jacobean generals to achieve his goals. In the Council of Five Hundred, vice-chairman Antoine de la Meurthe , widely regarded as moderate, called for the resignation or dismissal of directors Louis-Marie de la Révellière-Lépeaux and Philippe Antoine Merlin de Douai . It was soon joined by not only his own House of Commons, but also the Council of Elders and Directors Paul Barras (popularly known for his cunning, a quality that likely ensured that it was not yet replaced) and the newly appointed director Sieyès.

When Révellière de Lépeaux and Merlin de Douai resisted, General Barthélémy Catherine Joubert , who recently took command of the 17th Military Division (Paris), organized some movements of soldiers in Paris. Révellière-Lépeaux and Merlin had promptly submitted their resignations on the evening of June 18.

Although nothing in this sequence of events officially violated the French Constitution of 1795, it is widely viewed as a coup.