The Council of Five Hundred (Conseil des Cinq-Cents) was the lower house of the legislature of the French First Republic under the Constitution of the Year III.

To prevent them coming under the pressure of the sans-culottes and the Paris mob, the constitution allowed the Council of the Five Hundred to meet in closed session.

[4][5] Besides functioning as a legislative body, the Council of Five Hundred proposed the list out of which the Ancients chose five Directors, who jointly held executive power.

[7][verification needed][8] In the elections of April 1797, there were a number of voting irregularities and a very low turnout, resulting in a strong showing for Royalist tendencies.

[10] After documentation of Pichegru's activities was supplied by Napoleon Bonaparte, the Directors accused the entire body of plotting against the Revolution and moved quickly to annul the elections and arrest the royalists in what was known as the Coup of 18 Fructidor.