Day of 13 Vendemaire of the Year 4

In the waning days of the Convention in the fall of 1795, royalist–influenced sections of Paris revolted to prevent the adoption of a new constitution that protected the position of the radicals. Bonaparte was delegated to put down the uprising of 5 October 1795 (13 Vendémiaire Year IV). Bonaparte’s decisiveness and willingness to fire cannons on the demonstrators—in his words, to "give them a whiff of grapeshot"—consolidated the government’s control, but revealed how much the revolutionary state after Thermidor was dependent on the military.