Barras entered the army at sixteen, served as far as India, then lived six years in Paris without employment, between the gambling dens and the actresses. He witnessed the storming of the Bastille by chance, without any settled political idea. It was he who brought down Robespierre on 9 Thermidor, and he who, at Toulon, entrusted the defence of the coasts to an artillery captain named Bonaparte.
The story
Born on 30 June 1755 at Fox-Amphoux in the Var, into the minor nobility, Barras joined the army at sixteen and served in the colonies, as far as India under the Bailli de Suffren. A quarrel with the Maréchal de Castries put an end to that career.
From 1783 to 1789 he lived in Paris with no occupation, gambled in the worst dens of the city and kept company with the singer Sophie Arnould. He watched the fall of the Bastille by chance, holding, the record notes, no settled political idea at all. Freemasonry and the Jacobin Club carried him to the Convention as deputy for the Var.
Commissioner to the Army of Italy, he voted for the king's death without a qualm. It was at the siege of Toulon that he noticed a young artillery captain named Bonaparte; two years later, on 13 Vendémiaire, he handed him the troops that saved the Convention, and then the Army of Italy. He launched the future Emperor.
On 9 Thermidor Year II the Convention gave him command of its troops: he led the assault on the Hôtel de Ville where Robespierre had taken refuge. As a member of the Directory he wielded the leading power for four years, suspected all the while of quietly negotiating the return of the Bourbons.
18 Brumaire swept away the Directory and its master: confined to his estate at Grosbois, then exiled to Brussels, Barras was not allowed home until the Restoration — regicide vote and all. He wrote memoirs busy with self-justification, and died in Paris on 29 January 1829.
The grave
A simple grave, without sculpture or ornament, in the seventh row of the chemin du Dragon. The inscription is strikingly brief for a man of such power: “Paul Barras, member of the Directory, born at Fos Amphoux, dept. of the Var, on 30 June 1755, died in Paris on 29 January 1829”. The name of his native village is written there without its x — Fox-Amphoux. Nothing about Thermidor, nothing about Toulon, nothing about Bonaparte.
On site, do not miss
The inscription and its misprint: “Fos Amphoux” for Fox-Amphoux, on the grave of a man who governed France for four years.
Visitors' questions
Where is Paul Barras's grave?
In Division 28, Chemin du Dragon, seventh row, in the older, upper part of the cemetery. The grave is plain, without sculpture: nothing marks it as the resting place of the man who governed France for four years.
Marshal AugereauWhat role did Barras play on 9 Thermidor?
He bore chief responsibility for the fall of Robespierre, in July 1794, taking command of the forces sent against the insurgent Convention. That day, a year later, made him one of the five Directors.
Antoine d'AndréIs it true he launched Bonaparte's career?
Yes. At the recapture of Toulon from the English, Barras, then a commissioner, entrusted the defence of the coast to an unknown young artillery captain. Six years later, on the 18 Brumaire, that same Bonaparte overthrew the Directory and pushed him from power.
François Marie d'AbovilleWhat is engraved on his grave?
“Paul Barras, member of the Directory, born at Fos Amphoux, dép. du Var, on 30 June 1755, died in Paris on 29 January 1829” — with a misspelling of the village's name, Fox-Amphoux, and not a word of the rest of his career.
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