y is provided with telephone, electric light and tram services. Owing to
periodical inundations, the surrounding country is but little cultivated,
and the greater part of the population, which is of the mixed type common
to the lowlands of Columbia, is engaged in no settled productive
occupation.

BARRAS, PAUL FRANCOIS NICOLAS, COMTE DE (1755-1829), member of the French
Directory of 1795-1799, was descended from a noble family of Provence, and
was born at Fox-Amphoux. At the age of sixteen he entered the regiment of
Languedoc as "gentleman cadet," but embarked for India in 1776. After an
adventurous voyage he reached Pondicherry and shared in the defence of that
city, which ended in its capitulation to the British on the 18th of October
1778. The garrison being released, Barras returned to France. After taking
part in a second expedition to the East Indies in 1782-1783, he left the
army and occupied the following years with the frivolities congenial to his
class and to his nature. At the outbreak of the Revolution in 1789, he
espoused the democratic cause, and became one of the administrators of the
department of the Var. In June 1792 he took his seat in the high national
court at Orleans; and later in that year, on the outbreak of war with the
kingdom of Sardinia, he became commissioner to the French army of Italy,
and entered the Convention (the third of the national assemblies of France)
as a deputy for the department of the Var. In January 1793 he voted with
the majority for the death of Louis XVI. Much of his time, however, was
spent in missions to the districts of the south-east of France; and in this
way he made the acquaintance of Bonaparte at the siege of Toulon. As an
example of the incorrectness of the _Barras Memoirs_ we may note that the
writer assigned 30,000 men to the royalist defending force, whereas it was
less than 12,000; he also sought to minimize the share taken by Bonaparte
in the capture of that city.

In 1794 Barras sided with the men who sought to overthrow the Robespierre
faction, and their success in the _coup d'etat_ of 9 Thermidor (27th of
July) brought him almost to the front rank. In the next year, when the
Convention was threatened by the malcontent National Guards of Paris, it
appointed Barras to command the troops engaged in its defence. His
nomination of Bonaparte as one of his subalterns led to the adoption of
vigorous measures, which ensured the dispersion of the royalists and [v.03