ks in prison as a result of his friendship with Augustin Robespierre, but was released.
The following year, Barras had become a member of the French Directoire: one of the five members of the Directory, an executive body heading up two new parliamentary houses: the Council of Five Hundred and the Council of Ancients. Members of the two hundred an fifty-strong ‘Ancients’ were indeed ancient, having to be at least forty years old.
Napoleon set out to prove to the Directoire that he was the most important man in their lives.
Napoleon Bonaparte features in History Lessons: ‘Doing the Planning’
 David G Chandler, The Campaigns of Napoleon, vol. 1, Scribner, New York, 1966 pp 6-9
 F.M. Kircheisen, Memoirs of Napoleon I, trans, F. Collins, London 1929, p 26, quoted in Chandler op.cit. p 12