This battle was part of the establishing of a new form of government, the Directory, and it was a major factor in the rapid advancement of Republican General Napoleon Bonaparte's career.

In March 1793, this sentiment boiled over into an armed insurrection in the fiercely Catholic Vendée region of western France.

The Convention immediately ordered General Louis Lazare Hoche to proceed to the Vendée and force the Chouans to agree to a cessation of hostilities.

A small contingent of Royalists under the command of General Jean-Nicolas Stofflet and the fanatical Etienne-Alexandre Bernier refused to accept the peace settlement and continued to offer resistance to Hoche's army.

Only Général Puisaye and a small force were able to escape with the British fleet; the remainder were killed in action, taken prisoner, or executed.

Général Jean-François, baron de Menou was given command of the defence of the capital, but he was severely outnumbered with only 5,000 troops on hand to resist the Royalist army of 25,000 men.

The Military Committee of the Sections of the Capital under the command of Jean-Thomas-Élisabeth Richer de Sérizy announced that the decrees of the convention were no longer recognised.

Général Louis Michel Auguste Thévenet (called Danican) took command of the National Guard in the Le Peletier section.

The Convention ordered Menou to advance into Le Peletier, to disarm the entire area, and to close Danican's headquarters.

Menou realised his mistake, and launched a cavalry attack down the Rue du Faubourg-Montmartre, temporarily clearing the area of Royalists.

[citation needed] Bonaparte ordered Joachim Murat, a sous-lieutenant in the 12ème Régiment de Chasseurs à Cheval, to ride to the plain of Sablons and to return with the 40 cannons which Menou had indicated were located there.

Murat's squadron retrieved the cannons before the Royalists arrived and Bonaparte organised their arrangement, placing them in commanding areas with effective fields of fire.

Scottish philosopher and historian Thomas Carlyle later famously recorded that, on this occasion, Bonaparte gave his opponent a "Whiff of Grapeshot" and that "the thing we specifically call French Revolution is blown into space by it.

[4] On Sunday 25 October the National Convention declared itself dissolved and voted for a general amnesty for "deeds exclusively connected with the Revolution".

[citation needed] Abel Gance portrayed 13 Vendémiaire in act iii of his silent production Napoléon.