Vendémiaire: Bonaparte Defends the Convention

Napoleon Bonaparte was born in 1769 in Ajaccio, Corsica, a year after France acquired the island from Genoa. Trained at French military schools, he rose rapidly during the Revolution, first winning notice for his artillery planning at the siege of Toulon in 1793, after which he was promoted to brigadier general. After Thermidor he was briefly imprisoned for his Jacobin connections.

His big chance came on 13 Vendémiaire Year IV, 5 October 1795, when royalist-leaning sections of Paris rose against the Convention. The deputy Barras, put in charge of the defence, called on Bonaparte, who used artillery to break up the attack near the church of Saint-Roch. The episode made his reputation, earned him command of the Army of the Interior and then of the Army of Italy, and showed that the Republic now depended on soldiers to survive.