This article is a historiographical review that traces the origin of the different roles assigned to Brumaire by some of the most important and/or original historians of eighteenth-century France.The coup of 18 Brumaire was a pivotal event in the history of revolutionary France.After a decade characterised by political turmoil,violence and an apparently insolvable crisis of legitimacy,a general Napoleon Bonaparte,took control of the republican institutions.The historical relevance of Brumaire and the true meaning of the rise of Napoleon have been debated by several generations of scholars.Usually,the place assigned to Brumaire depends on the general framework adopted to explain the French Revolution.Karl Marx influentially offered a broader perspective,as he placed the Revolution itself within a comprehensive process of historical materialism.Such philosophical teleological outlook,focused on socioeconomic factors and has been substantiated by the research of professional historians of the Marxist school.While this approach seems too dogmatic,and,in particular,too hasty in its judgement of Brumaire,the quest for a broad conceptual framework that can explain and organise the radical political changes shaking eighteenth-century France has continued.This review thus considers the scholarship of Alfred Cobban,as well as recent developments in Napoleonic studies which (without denying the importance of certain historical forces) confirm the impact of an individual’s personality on the course of history.