Revolutionary Europe, 1789-1815

by H. Morse Stephens

The First Directors.

The Convention, conscious of its unpopularity, and not desiring to increase it, made but slight efforts to discover and punish the leaders of the insurrection of 13th Vendémiaire. Only a few military executions, after trial by court-martial, of a few prisoners taken with arms in their hands were permitted, and no vigour was shown in hunting down even the most conspicuous agitators. It was resolved at once to proceed to the election of the first Directors under the new system. Sieyès refused to be one of them. It was generally agreed, though not formally declared, that the first Directors should all be deputies of the Convention who had voted for the death of Louis XVI., and who might therefore be presumed to be faithful to republican institutions, if not from inclination at least from fear. The five deputies actually elected were—Barras, whose conduct on the 9th Thermidor, and on the 13th Vendémiaire, had obtained for him the gratitude of the majority of the deputies; Reubell, an ex-Constituant and an Alsatian, who was believed to have a special knowledge of foreign affairs; Revellière-Lépeaux, another ex-Constituant, a member of the Committee of Public Safety, a good lawyer, and the future inventor of a new religion; Carnot, the famous military member of the Great Committee of Public Safety, who was selected for his strategic ability; and Letourneur, an ex-officer of Engineers, like Carnot, who was expected to act as Carnot’s assistant. To the Council of Ancients and the Council of Five Hundred were elected among the two-thirds chosen from the Convention the more conspicuous Thermidorians, including Sieyès, Cambacérès, Tallien, and Treilhard. The six first ministers were appointed by the Directors on 14th Brumaire (5th November). They were Merlin of Douai and Charles Delacroix, two ex-deputies of the Convention who had not been elected to the new Legislature, appointed to the Ministries of Justice and of Foreign Affairs, Aubert-Dubayet, a distinguished general, to the Ministry of War, and Faypoult, Benezech and Admiral Truguet to the Ministries of Finance, the Interior, and the Marine.

Dissolution of the Convention.

The first Directors elected and the new Legislature constituted, the Convention had to decree its own dissolution. The three years during which it had sat are perhaps the most important and most critical in the whole history of France. The Convention had not merely witnessed the rise and fall of many cliques and many parties; it had allowed the Reign of Terror to be established, and had punished its inventors with death or deportation. It had passed through nearly every variety of government, and had seen France in her greatest degradation and at the height of her success. Its last act, passed on the very day on which it dissolved itself, 4th Brumaire (26th October), was worthy of its best and greatest days, for it was an act declaring a complete amnesty for all political offences, or supposed offences, since the declaration of the Republic.

England and the Emigrés.

Treason of Pichegru.

The successful establishment of the Directory and the victory won over the royalist agitators on 13th Vendémiaire had a profound effect upon the policy of England. Hitherto Pitt and Grenville, inspired by their agent in Switzerland, William Wickham, had believed in the vain promises of the royalist émigrés, and had hoped by their means to restore the Bourbon monarchy in France. The headquarters of the royalist agitators were, as they had always been, in Switzerland. Neither the Comte de Provence, who, since his nephew’s death, called himself Louis XVIII., nor the Comte d’Artois were really deceived by the hopes held out by their royalist friends. But the English ministers, deluded by the extravagant promises of the émigrés and by the reports of Wickham, considered the prospects of an overthrow of the Republic to be excellent. They had shown their confidence in the émigrés by the active assistance they had given to the expedition to Quiberon Bay, and still more by the large sums of secret-service money which had been expended in Switzerland. The efforts of the royalist émigrés took two directions; on the one hand, they had fomented the feeling of discontent in Paris which had culminated in the insurrection of 13th Vendémiaire, and, on the other, they had attempted to affect the loyalty of the generals of the Republic. The general on whom they counted most was Pichegru, the conqueror of Holland. This general, like Dumouriez in 1793, was more ambitious to attain wealth and power for himself than success for the Republic. During his sojourn in Paris in the spring of 1795 he had formed a close alliance with the royalist agitators in the capital, and on proceeding to take up the command of the Army of the Rhine-and-Moselle he entered into direct communications with the Prince de Condé, the general commanding the émigré army in Germany. Condé promised Pichegru the government of Alsace, the Château of Chambord, a million livres in cash, an income of two hundred thousand livres a year, and the rank of Marshal of France, if he would undertake to restore the Bourbons. Great hopes were built upon these negotiations, and the Comte de Provence left Verona to take part in them. But the success of these intrigues was nullified by the victory of 13th Vendémiaire; the Margrave of Baden-Baden refused to allow the Pretender to enter his territory; Wickham was unwillingly convinced that the purchase of the general did not include the purchase of his army; and the Directory, as soon as it had firmly seized the reins of power, recalled Pichegru, whose transactions with Condé had been more than suspected, and replaced him by a thorough republican, Moreau. These failures convinced Pitt and Grenville that there was no advantage to be gained in trusting to the promises of the émigrés.

Exchange of Madame Royale.

The Directory, on assuming power, resolved to continue the policy of the Thermidorians, and not to recur to the notions of the revolutionary propaganda. It desired to show Europe that France was ready to enter into the comity of nations, and did not presume for the future to interfere with the internal arrangements of other countries. It, therefore, on grounds of humanity, took up again the negotiations which had been commenced in July 1793 for the release of the children of Louis XVI., and, using Spain as an intermediary, entered into communications on this subject with the bitterest enemy of France—Austria. The death of the Dauphin, commonly called Louis XVII., had left only one of the children of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette in the hands of the Republic. The Thermidorians had, at the instigation of one of their leaders, Boissy-d’Anglas, seen the expediency of proving to Europe that the French republicans were not barbarians, by offering to surrender the person of Madame Royale to her Austrian relatives. This project was carried out by the Directory. On 20th December 1795 Madame Royale was exchanged in Switzerland for the four deputies and the Minister of War whom Dumouriez had handed over to the Austrians, and for another deputy, Drouet, the former postmaster at Sainte-Menehould, who had been taken prisoner by the Austrians in 1793.

Desire for Peace in France.