Background
Barras was descended from an ancient noble family of Provence and before 1789 began a military career with the French forces in India. He returned to France at the outbreak of the revolution and, as an elected deputy from the department of the Var to the national convention in 1792, voted for the death of Louis XVI. Barras was then dispatched as political commisar to the army of Italy. In this capacity he had a share in the recapture of Toulon from the English in December 1793 and was prominently concerned in the savage reprisals which followed. He was nominated by the convention as commander-in-chief of the armed forces of Paris and in this capacity cooperated in the overthrow of Robespierre in July 1794. He served as a member of the convention's powerful committee of general security from November 1794 to March 1795 and was again appointed commander of the army of the interior on the occasion of the Royalist rising in Paris on Oct. 5, 1795. After Bonaparte had helped crush this revolt he was, at Barras' request, officially recognized as Barras' second-in-command.
Barras rose to political eminence as one of the original five directors who formed the executive under the constitution of 1795; his special responsibility was police matters. Barras was once more given command of the armed forces in Paris on Sept. 4, 1797, during a coup d'étatd'etat which eliminated the two conservative members from the republican government. With J. F. Rewbell and L. M. de la Revellière-Lépeaux,Revelliere-Lepeaux, Barras then formed the triumvirate that controlled French policy until the overthrow of the directory by Bonaparte in November 1799.
It was through Barras that Bonaparte met his first wife, Josephine de Beauharnais, who, while a widow, had been one of Barras' mistresses. Bonaparte, however, did not, as is often stated, owe his command of the army of Italy to Barras; this was a unanimous decision of the directors taken for purely military reasons. Despite their past relationship, Bonaparte excluded Barras from further political assignments. His corruption and immorality had destroyed his public reputation, and he spent the rest of his life in retirement. He died on Jan. 29, 1829, at Chaillot, near Paris. Barras' Mémoires (4 vols. 1895), compiled by Rousselin de Saint-Albin from papers left by Barras, are highly unreliable. On Barras as a director, see the article by A. Goodwin, "The French Executive Directory--A Revaluation," History (December 1937).