The Directory

With the fall of Robespierre in 1794 and the slow dismantling of the machinery of the Terror, politicians sought a new way to govern France.  While there had been international success in the form of the Treaty of Basle bringing peace between France and her former opponents Russia and Spain, Britain would not come to terms with the revolutionaries.  From the revolutionaries’ perspective there was a worrying upsurge in royalist sympathisers with mutterings on the street of life being better under the King.  So it was the Convention created a new Constitution of Year III which had been designed by a commission of eleven.

The new Constitution created a bicameral legislature. These two Councils would be elected by the property holding classes this meant that of a total population of twenty eight million only six million were allowed to vote.  The six million did not elect the Councils directly, instead they voted for thirty thousand higher tax paying citizens who did.  The Council of Five Hundred would consist of deputies who were at least thirty years old.  These would meet in the old riding school the Manège.  The second institution would consist of men above the age of forty who either had to be widowers or married this was named the Council of Elders (Anciens).  They would meet in the Salle de Machines in the Tuileries Palace.  The deputies in both houses would serve terms of three years.  Learning from previous mistakes (or perhaps worried at increasing royalist sympathise) it was decided that the Councils would consist of two thirds of the deputies from the National Convention. A third of each of the Councils would be replaced every year.  They would act as a form.  The Executive was formed of five Directors.  These Directors would be nominated by the Council of Five Hundred and then voted on by the Council of Elders.  Every year one of the Directors would retire this was done by drawing lots.  

The enactment of the constitution was put to a vote with over a million voting for and just under fifty thousand voting against.  In September 23 1795 it became law only for a general insurrection to break out in Paris amongst royalists and conservatives who believed that their chance of having their choice of candidates was limited due to the two thirds rule.  Although Barras was entrusted with dealing with the issue he turned to a young Corsican named Napoleon Bonaparte who had recently drove the French fleet from Toulon.   Napoleon managed to defeat the Coup of 13 Vendémiaire (5th October 1795) with the use of a vast array of artillery (procured by a young Murat).  The whiff of grapeshot seemed to solve the Directory’s problems, for now.

The Directors selected by the Ancients were Jean-François Rewbell; Paul François Jean Nicolas, vicomte de Barras; Louis Marie de La Révellière-Lépeaux; Lazare Carnot; and Étienne-François Le Tourneur. All of these were members of the Convention and regicides and it was hoped that they would ensue the continuation of the revolution.  For some such as François-Noël Babeuf however the revolution had been betrayed.  He would organise a group of ex Jacobins to assemble in the winter of 1796 in an effort to overthrow the Directory.  This led to an attempt by the conspirators to win over to their cause the soldiers of the camp of Grenelle.  However the conspirators had been betrayed and they were ambushed.  Babeuf for his part would be arrested and then guillotined.

There continued to be success in foreign affairs as Bonaparte was able to gain Nice and Savoy to the French Republic.  Napoleon would also be able make peace with Sardinia in 1796 and finally in October 1797 end the war with Austria after making them sign the Campo Fornio.  The French were given Lombardy and the Austrian Netherlands.     Further to this the Spanish became allies of France with the Treaty of San Ildefonso in 1796. All seemed to be going well for the Directory.

When however, elections were held in Germinal (March-April 1797) to replace a third of the Deputies, the Directors found those that supported them had been electorally wiped out.  All but eleven former National Convention men were not re-elected.   With the royalists taking control of the Councils they struck down the laws repressing priests and allowing the return of the emigres.  The Directors responded by asking for the support of the army to support the revolution.  On the 18th Fructidor (4th September 1794) Paris was put under the control of the army and martial law introduced.  It was then decreed that the elections would be annulled in forty nine of the departments.  A hundred and seventy seven deputies were moved any many were sent to Guiana.  Laws were reintroduced to limit emigres and priests once again and newspapers were shut down across the country.

Many were now concerned with the election of 1798 approached electing not just a third of the legislature but also to fill the space of the deputies who had been removed.  Now however there appeared to a swing to the left.  The Directors acted once again against the will of the people and with the law of Law of 22 Floréal Year VI once again annulled more departments results.  Many on the left and right were now questioning whether this was any form of democracy and whether the Directory had descended into dictatorship.

Concerned at their unpopularity and some of their generals fame they were more than happy to allow Napoleon Bonaparte to lead an expedition against the Mamluks in Egypt (part of the Ottoman Empire) in an effort to impede British interests.  The mixed success of his operations were overshadowed by tales of bravery and exoticism that made their way to Paris as well as various looted treasures.  This only further enhanced the fame of the young general.  Fortune elsewhere however turned against France as a second coalition was formed, a Quasi-War developed with the USA and conscription was introduced in the Republic.  Increasingly the public turned away from the Directors and more Jacobins were elected to the Councils.  The new Director Sieyes sought dramatic action and with the assistance of Barras began to remove the other Directors.  Soon three Directors would be replaced in a year with people were malleable to Barras and Sieyes.

The French then suffered a series of shattering losses across all fronts.  Napoleon felt compelled to act and returned from his sojourn in the East to France.  On the 18th Brumaire word reached the Councils that a Jacobin conspiracy was underway.  The phantom revolt was designed to force the Directors to resign and those that did not were arrested.  With the careful management of Lucien Bonaparte, the Councils were forced through a series of farce and fear to disperse.  Soon enough the Directory was finished and a Consulate created under Sieyes, Ducos and the ambitious Napoleon.

Germaine De Staël on the Directory.  Taken from Considerations on the Principle events of the French Revolution, Germaine De Staël, Liberty Fund,  Indianapolis (2008) p384

They entered the palace of Luxembourg, which was allotted to them, without finding a table to write upon, and the state was not in better order than the palace.  The paper money was reduced to almost the thousandth part of its nominal value; there were not in the public treasury a hundred thousand francs in specie; provisions were still so scarce that the dissatisfaction of the people on this point could with difficulty be restrained; the insurrection of La Vendée was still going on; the civil disturbance had given rise to bands of robbers, known by the name of chauffeurs, who committed horrible excesses throughout the country; and lastly , almost all the French armies were disorganised.

In six months the Directory raised France from this deplorable situation.  Money replaced the paper currency without any shock; the old landholders lived peacefully by the side of those who had recently acquired national domains; the roads, and the country, were again rendered completely safe, the armies were but too victorious; the freedom of the press reappeared; the elections followed their legal course, and France might have been said to be free.

Gabriel Brute recounts what happened to a priest during the Directory.  Taken from Memoirs of the Right Reverend Simon WM. Gabriel Brute, The Catholic Publication Society, New York (1876) p130-136

He indeed escaped during the whole reign of Robespierre, and until the laws of death were repealed.  Banishment to French Guiana for the younger Priests, perpetual imprisonment for the older ones, who should exercise any of the functions of the holy ministry, were the milder orders of the day.

The more zealous Jacobins, however, were much displeased at this relaxation of the law, and often eluded it. When they discovered any Priests in the country, and were not restrained by the presence of some magistrate or leader not so desperately bent on the destruction of the Priests as themselves, they would often deliberately put them to death on the spot, rather than bring them to the city and deliver them up to the authorities.

I remember and relate almost the words in which the tale was told to- me : Poor Mr. Sorette was called the other day to administer the last sacrament to an old woman in a little farmhouse. He had finished, and was coming back to his hiding place, when a party of Contre-Chouans, who were patrolling the country in search of victims, and who knew that Mr. Sorette was concealed somewhere in that vicinity, asked a peasant girl whom they met if she could tell them where they would find the Priest, as they needed his services for a sick person. It so happened that she had met Mr. Sorette but a few moments before, and deceived by their disguise, and supposing them to be friends, she said to them, after a moment's hesitation, Mr. Sorette has left that house yonder but a minute since, and is passing along the hedge there by the meadow. They immediately ran after him, and as soon as they drew near fired their guns at him and broke his arm. He immediately stopped and surrendered, and then told them to lead him to the city. But they knowing that in such a case he would be only exiled to Cayenne, told him that they had resolved to put him to death. Mr. Sorette then entreated them to allow him a few minutes to say his prayers and prepare himself for death. He then knelt down on the grass, and, when they had waited a few moments, they shot him on the spot. Some of his murderers were known, and among them two or three rabid Jacobins, who had committed many crimes of a similar character during the time of Robespierre and afterwards.

Among the Parishioners of Mr. Sorette, some were found more ready to obey the feeling of indignation and revenge excited by his death than those of mercy and forgiveness, which he had so constantly preached to them when alive. These watched their opportunity, and, to complete the picture of those sad times, we heard soon afterwards that some of his murderers had been killed, and sent to meet their holy victim before the Judgment seat. Alas ! they were more to be pitied than he he, in truth, so exceedingly happy. At the altar, that morning, in some hidden corner, the holy communion received as viaticum, his ministry of consolation and grace to the poor dying woman, and then kneeling quietly on the grass, probably his last words of prayer, like St. Stephen's, offered up for those blind men, and his life a holocaust of peace for his unhappy country.

Germaine De Staël on the Directory.  Taken from Considerations on the Principle events of the French Revolution, Germaine De Staël, Liberty Fund, Indianapolis (2008) p397

The Directory, as preserver of its own political existence, had strong reasons for putting itself in a state of defence; but how could it?  The defects in the constitution which M. Necker had so well pointed out rendered it very difficult for the government to make a legal resistance to the attacks of the councils.  The Council of Ancients was inclined to defend the Directors, only because it occupied, though very imperfectly, the place of a chamber of peers; but as the deputies of this council were not named for life, they were afraid of rendering themselves unpopular by supporting magistrates whom the public opinion rejected.  If the government had possessed the right of dissolving the Five Hundred, the mere threat of exerting this prerogative would have restrained them within bounds.  In short, if the executive power had been able to oppose even a suspending veto to the decrees of the councils, it would have been satisfied with the means with which the law had armed it for protection.  But these very magistrates, whose authority was so limited, had great powers as a revolutionary faction; and they were not scrupulous enough to confine themselves to the rules of constitutional warfare when, to get rid of their opponents, they needed only to have recourse to force.  The personal interest of some individuals was seen on this occasion, as it always will be, to overturn the barriers of the law, if these barriers are not constructed in such a way as to maintain themselves.

Toussaint L’Ouverture writes to the Directory in November 1797.  Taken from  The Haitian Revolution (Revolutions series) [selected letters & other writings by Toussaint L'Ouverture], Verso, London (2008) p34

Could men who have once enjoyed the benefits of liberty look on calmly while it is taken from them! They bore their chains when they knew no condition of life better than that of slavery.  But today when they have left it, if they had a thousand lives, they would sacrifice them all rather than be subjected again to slavery.  But no, the hand that has broken our chains will not subject us to them again.  She shall not permit the perversion of her sublime morality and the destruction of the principles that honour her the most, and the degradation of her most beautiful accomplishment, by rescinding the decree of 16 Pluviôse (4th February 1794, the abolishment of slavery in the French colonies) that honours so well all of humanity.  But if, in order to re-establish servitude in St Domingue this were to be done, I declare to you that this would be to attempt the impossible.  We have known how to confront danger to obtain our liberty, and we will know how to confront death to preserve it.  This Citizens and Directors, is the morality of the people of St Domingue, these are the principles I transmit to you on their behalf.

Germaine De Staël on the planning of Brumaire.  Taken from Considerations on the Principle events of the French Revolution, Germaine De Staël, Liberty Fund, Indianapolis (2008) p430

I learned that during the five weeks which Bonaparte had spent at Paris since his return, he had been preparing the public mind for the Revolution which had just taken place.  Every faction had presented itself to him, and he had given hopes to all.  He had told the Jacobins that he would save them from the return of the old dynasty; he had, on the contrary, suffered the royalists to flatter themselves that he would re-establish the Bourbons; he had insinuated to Sieyes that he would give him an opportunity of bringing forth into light the constitution which he had been keeping in darkness for ten years; he had above all, captivated the public, which belongs to no faction, by general proclamations of love of order and tranquillity.  Mention was made to him of a woman whose papers the Directory had caused to be seized; he exclaimed on the absurd atrocity of tormenting women, he who, according to his caprice, has condemned so many of them to unlimited exile; he spoke only of peace, he who has introduced eternal war into the world.  Finally, there was in his manner an affectation of gentleness, which formed an odious contrast with what was known of his violence.  But, after ten years of suffering, enthusiastic attachment to ideas had given way in revolutionary characters to personal hopes and fears.

Barère’s view on the Directory.  Taken from Memoirs of Bertrand Barère Volume 3, H. S. Nichols, London (1896) p53

This government of the Five was too weak and too ignorant to secure the confidence of the nation. It suited none of the parties, either of the Revolution or of the counter-revolution. This spurious and suspicious constitutionalism pro- duced a "see -saw" government which on one day aimed blows at the republicans whom it disliked, and on the next at the royalists whom it dreaded. No politician ventured to face the present, and still less to forecast the future.