Directory, The

Directory, The, the name given to the government of France, consisting of a legislative body of two chambers, the Council of the Ancients and the Council of Five Hundred, which succeeded the fall of the Convention, and ruled France from October 27, 1795, till its overthrow by Bonaparte on the 18th Brumaire (November 9, 1799). The Directors proper were five in number, and were elected by the latter council from a list presented by the former, and the chief members of it were Barras and Carnot.

Definition taken from The Nuttall Encyclopædia, edited by the Reverend James Wood (1907)