<Tr> <Td> <Ul> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> </Ul> </Td> </Tr> <Ul> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> </Ul> <P> The Directory was a five - member committee which governed France from 1795, when it replaced the Committee of Public Safety . On 9 November 1799, it was overthrown by Napoleon Bonaparte in the Coup of 18 Brumaire and replaced by the French Consulate . It gave its name to the final four years of the French Revolution . </P> <P> The Directory was continually at war with foreign coalitions which at different times included Britain, Austria, Prussia, the Kingdom of Naples, Russia and the Ottoman Empire . It annexed Belgium and the left bank of the Rhine, while Bonaparte conquered a large part of Italy . The Directory established 196 short - lived sister republics modelled after France, in Italy, Switzerland and the Netherlands . The conquered cities and states were required to send to France huge amounts of money, as well as art treasures, which were used to fill the new Louvre museum in Paris . An army led by Bonaparte conquered Egypt and marched as far as Saint - Jean - d'Acre in Syria . The Directory defeated a resurgence of the War in the Vendée, the royalist - led civil war in the Vendée region, but failed in its venture to support the Irish Rebellion of 1798 and create an Irish Republic . </P>

When did the rule of the directory begin