The Council of Ancients or Council of Elders was the upper house of the French legislature under the Constitution of the Year III, during the period commonly known as the Directory, from 22 August 1795 until 9 November 1799, roughly the second half of the period generally referred to as the French Revolution.
The Council of Ancients in session.
The Directory was the governing five-member committee in the French First Republic from 26 October 1795 until 10 November 1799, when it was overthrown by Napoleon Bonaparte in the Coup of 18 Brumaire and replaced by the Consulate. Directoire is the name of the final four years of the French Revolution. Mainstream historiography also uses the term in reference to the period from the dissolution of the National Convention on 26 October 1795 to Napoleon's coup d'état.
The Convention rises against Robespierre (27 July 1794)
François Antoine de Boissy d'Anglas, one of the principal authors of the Constitution of 1795
Paul Barras, who defended the government against attacks from the left and right
General Lazare Hoche defeated a royalist army that landed in Brittany (July 1795)