The revolutionary assembly of France, consisting of 749 members chosen by universal suffrage, which on 22nd September 1792 supplanted the Legislative Assembly, proclaimed the Republic, and condemned Louis XVI. to the guillotine; in spite of its perplexities and internal discords, it was successful in suppressing the Royalists in La Vendée and the south, and repelling the rest of Europe leagued against it, not only in arms, but in the field of diplomacy; it laid the foundation of several of the academic institutions of the country, which have since contributed to its glory as well as welfare, and collected them together in the world-famous Institute; its work done, "weary of its own existence, and all men sensibly weary of it," it willingly deceased in an act of self-dissolution in favour of a Directory of Five on 20th October 1795.