compassion. The National Guard was reorganized so as to
exclude the lowest class. The property of persons executed
since the 10th of March 1793 was restored to their families.
The signs of reaction daily became more unmistakable. Worshippers
crowded to the churches; the émigrés returned by
thousands; and Anti-Jacobin outbreaks, followed by massacre,
took place in the south. The despair of the Jacobins produced
a second rising in Paris on the 1st Prairial (May 20). Again
the mob invaded the Convention, murdered a deputy named
Féraud who attempted to shield the president, and set his head
on a pike. The ultra-Jacobin members took possession and
embodied their wishes in decrees. Again the hall was cleared
by the National Guards, but order was restored in Paris only by
employing regular troops, a new precedent in the history of the
Revolution. Paris was disarmed, and several leaders of the
insurrection were sentenced to death. The Revolutionary
Tribunal was suppressed. Toleration was proclaimed for all
priests who would declare their obedience to the laws of the state.
Royalists began to count upon the restoration of young Louis
the Dauphin, otherwise Louis XVII.; but his health had been
ruined by persevering cruelty, and he died on the 10th of June.
The Thermidorian government also endeavoured to pacify
the rebels of the west. Its best adviser, Hoche, recommended
an amnesty and the assurance of religious freedom.
On these terms peace was made with the Vendeans
at La Jaunaie in February and with the Chouans at
Progress
of the war.
La Mabilais in April. Some of the Vendean leaders persevered
in resistance until May, and even after their submission the peace
was ill observed, for the Royalists hearkened to the solicitations
of the princes and their advisers. In the hope of rekindling the
civil war a body of émigrés sailed under cover of the British
fleet and landed on the peninsula of Quiberon. They were
presently hemmed in by Hoche, and all who could not make
their escape to the ships were forced to surrender at discretion
(July 20). Nearly 700 were executed by court-martial. Yet
the spirit of revolt lingered in the west and broke out time after
time. Against the coalition the Republic was gloriously successful.
(See French Revolutionary Wars.) In the summer of 1794
the French invaded Spain at both ends of the Pyrenees, and at
the close of the year they made good their footing in Catalonia
and Navarre. By the beginning of 1795 the Rhine frontier had
been won. Against the king of Sardinia alone they accomplished
little. At sea the French had sustained a severe defeat
from Lord Howe, and several of their colonies had been taken
by the British. But Great Britain, when the Netherlands were
lost, could do little for her allies. Even before the close of 1794
the king of Prussia retired from any active part in the war, and
on the 5th of April 1795 he concluded with France the treaty
of Basel, which recognized her occupation of the left bank of the
Rhine. The new democratic government which the French
had established in Holland purchased peace by surrendering
Dutch territory to the south of that river. A treaty of peace
between France and Spain followed in July. The grand duke
of Tuscany had been admitted to terms in February. The
coalition thus fell into ruin and France occupied a more commanding
position than in the proudest days of Louis XIV.
But this greatness was unsure so long as France remained without a stable government. A constitutional committee was named in April. It resolved that the constitution of 1793 was impracticable and proceeded to frame a new one. The draft was submitted to the Convention Constitution of the year III. The Directory. in June. In its final shape the constitution established a parliamentary system of two houses: a Council of Five Hundred and a Council of Ancients, 250 in number. Members of the Five Hundred were to be at least thirty years of age, members of the Ancients at least forty. The system of indirect election was maintained but universal suffrage was abandoned. A moderate qualification was required for electors in the first degree, a higher one for electors in the second degree.
When the 750 persons necessary had been elected they were to choose the Ancients out of their own body. A legislature was to last for three years, and one-third of the members were to be renewed every year. The Ancients had a suspensory veto, but no initiative in legislation. The executive was to consist of five directors chosen by the Ancients out of a list elected by the Five Hundred. One director was to retire every year. The directors were aided by ministers for the various departments of State. These ministers did not form a council and had no general powers of government. Provision was made for the stringent control of all local authorities by the central government. Since the separation of powers was still deemed axiomatic, the directors had no voice in legislation or taxation, nor could directors or ministers sit in either house. Freedom of religion, freedom of the press, and freedom of labour were guaranteed. Armed assemblies and even public meetings of political societies were forbidden. Petitions were to be tendered only by individuals or through the public authorities. The constitution was not, however, allowed free play from the beginning. The Convention was so unpopular that, if its members had retired into private life, they would not have been safe and their work might have been undone. It was therefore decreed that two-thirds of the first legislature must be chosen out of the Convention.
When the constitution was submitted to the primary
assemblies, most electors held aloof, 1,050,000 voting for and only
5,000 voting against it. On the 23rd of September it
was declared to be law. Then all the parties which
resented the limit upon freedom of election combined
Insurrection
of 13 Vendémiaire.
to rise in Paris. The government entrusted its defence
to Barras; but its true man of action was young General
Bonaparte, who could dispose of a few thousand regular troops
and a powerful artillery. The Parisians were ill-equipped and
ill-led, and on the 13th of Vendémiaire (October 5) their insurrection
was quelled almost without loss to the victors. No
further resistance was possible. The Convention dissolved itself
on the 26th of October.
The feeling of the nation was clearly shown in the elections.
Among those who had sat in the Convention the anti-Jacobins
were generally preferred. A leader of the old Right
was sometimes chosen by many departments at once.
Owing to this circumstance, 104 places reserved to
Balance of parties in
the new legislature.
members of the Convention were left unfilled. When
the persons elected met they had no choice but to co-opt
the 104 from the Left of the Convention. The new one-third
were, as a rule, enemies of the Jacobins, but not of the Revolution.
Many had been members of the Constituent or of the Legislative
Assembly. When the new legislature was complete, the Jacobins
had a majority, although a weak one. After the Council of the
Ancients had been chosen by lot, it remained to name the
directors. For its own security the Left resolved that all five
must be old members of the Convention and regicides. The persons
chosen were Rewbell, Barras, La Révellière Lépeaux, Carnot
and Letourneur. Rewbell was an able, although unscrupulous,
man of action, Barras a dissolute and shameless adventurer,
La Révellière Lépeaux the chief of a new sect, the Theophilanthropists,
and therefore a bitter foe to other religions, especially
the Catholic. Severe integrity and memorable public services
raised Carnot far above his colleagues, but he was not a statesman
and was hampered by his past. Letourneur, a harmless
insignificant person, was his admirer and follower. The division
in the legislature was reproduced in the Directory. Rewbell,
Barras and La Révellière Lépeaux had a full measure of the Jacobin
spirit; Carnot and Letourneur favoured a more temperate policy.
With the establishment of the Directory the Revolution might seem closed. The nation only desired rest and the healing of its many wounds. Those who wished to restore Louis XVIII. and the ancien régime and those who would have renewed the Reign of Terror were insignificant Character of the Directory. in number. The possibility of foreign interference had vanished with the failure of the coalition. Nevertheless the four years of the Directory were a time of arbitrary government and chronic disquiet. The late atrocities had made confidence or goodwill between parties impossible. The same instinct of self-preservation which had led the members of the Convention to claim so large a part in the new legislature and the whole of
