Brewer's: Directory

The French constitution of 1795, when the executive was vested in five persons called directors, one of whom retired every year. After a sickly existence of four years, it was quashed by Napoleon Bonaparte. An alphabetical list of the inhabitants, etc., of a given locality, as a “London Directory.”

Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894
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