The directory, pressed for money, and shackled by the disastrous state of the finances, had recourse to measures somewhat extraordinary. It had sold or pledged the most valuable articles of the Wardrobe, in order to meet the greatest urgencies. National property was still left; but it sold badly, and for assignats. The directory proposed a compulsory loan, which was decreed by the councils. This was a relic of the revolutionary measures with regard to the rich; but, having been irresolutely adopted, and executed without due authority, it did not succeed. The directory then endeavoured to revive paper money; it proposed the issue of mandats territoriaux, which were to be substituted for the assignats then in circulation, at the rate of thirty for one, and to take the place of money. The councils decreed the issue of mandats territoriaux to the amount of two thousand four hundred millions. They had the advantage of being exchangeable at once and upon presentation, for the national domains which represented them. Their sale was very extensive, and in this way was completed the revolutionary mission of the assignats, of which they were the second period. They procured the directory a momentary resource; but they also lost their credit, and led insensibly to bankruptcy, which was the transition from paper to specie.
The military situation of the republic was not a brilliant one; at the close of the convention there had been an abatement of victories. The equivocal position and weakness of the central authority, as much as the scarcity, had relaxed the discipline of the troops. The generals, too, disappointed that they had distinguished their command by so few victories, and were not spurred on by an energetic government, became inclined to insubordination. The convention had deputed Pichegru and Jourdan, one at the head of the army of the Rhine, the other with that of the Sambre-et-Meuse, to surround and capture Mayence, in order that they might occupy the whole line of the Rhine. Pichegru made this project completely fail; although possessing the entire confidence of the republic, and enjoying the greatest military fame of the day, he formed counter-revolutionary schemes with the prince of Condé; but they were unable to agree. Pichegru urged the emigrant prince to enter France with his troops, by Switzerland or the Rhine, promising to remain inactive, the only thing in his power to do in favour of such an attempt. The prince required as a preliminary, that Pichegru should hoist the white flag in his army, which was, to a man, republican. This hesitation, no doubt, injured the projects of the reactionists, who were preparing the conspiracy of Vendémiaire. But Pichegru wishing, one way or the other, to serve his new allies and to betray his country, allowed himself to be defeated at Heidelberg, compromised the army of Jourdan, evacuated Mannheim, raised the siege of Mayence with considerable loss, and exposed that frontier to the enemy.
The directory found the Rhine open towards Mayence, the war of La Vendée rekindled; the coasts of France and Holland threatened with a descent from England; lastly, the army of Italy destitute of everything, and merely maintaining the defensive under Schérer and Kellermann. Carnot prepared a new plan of campaign, which was to carry the armies of the republic to the very heart of the hostile states. Bonaparte, appointed general of the interior after the events of Vendémiaire, was placed at the head of the army of Italy; Jourdan retained the command of the army of the Sambre-et- Meuse, and Moreau had that of the army of the Rhine, in place of Pichegru. The latter, whose treason was suspected by the directory, though not proved, was offered the embassy to Sweden, which he refused, and retired to Arbois, his native place. The three great armies, placed under the orders of Bonaparte, Jourdan, and Moreau, were to attack the Austrian monarchy by Italy and Germany, combine at the entrance of the Tyrol and march upon Vienna, in echelon. The generals prepared to execute this vast movement, the success of which would make the republic mistress of the headquarters of the coalition on the continent.
The directory gave to general Hoche the command of the coast, and deputed him to conclude the Vendéan war. Hoche changed the system of warfare adopted by his predecessors. La Vendée was disposed to submit. Its previous victories had not led to the success of its cause; defeat and ill-fortune had exposed it to plunder and conflagration. The insurgents, irreparably injured by the disaster of Savenay, by the loss of their principal leader, and their best soldiers, by the devastating system of the infernal columns, now desired nothing more than to live on good terms with the republic. The war now depended only on a few chiefs, upon Charette, Stofflet, etc. Hoche saw that it was necessary to wean the masses from these men by concessions, and then to crush them. He skilfully separated the royalist cause from the cause of religion, and employed the priests against the generals, by showing great indulgence to the catholic religion. He had the country scoured by four powerful columns, took their cattle from the inhabitants, and only restored them in return for their arms. He left no repose to the armed party, defeated Charette in several encounters, pursued him from one retreat to another, and at last made him prisoner. Stofflet wished to raise the Vendéan standard again on his territory; but it was given up to the republicans. These two chiefs, who had witnessed the beginning of the insurrection, were present at its close. They died courageously; Stofflet at Angers, Charette at Nantes, after having displayed character and talents worthy of a larger theatre. Hoche likewise tranquillized Brittany. Morbihan was occupied by numerous bands of Chouans, who formed a formidable association, the principal leader of which was George Cadoudal. Without entering on a campaign, they were mastering the country. Hoche directed all his force and activity against them, and before long had destroyed or exhausted them. Most of their leaders quitted their arms, and took refuge in England. The directory, on learning these fortunate pacifications, formally announced to both councils, on the 28th Messidor (June, 1796), that this civil war was definitively terminated.
In this manner the winter of the year IV. passed away. But the directory could hardly fail to be attacked by the two parties, whose sway was prevented by its existence, the democrats and the royalists. The former constituted an inflexible and enterprising sect. For them, the 9th Thermidor was an era of pain and oppression: they desired to establish absolute equality, in spite of the state of society, and democratic liberty, in spite of civilization. This sect had been so vanquished as effectually to prevent its return to power. On the 9th Thermidor it had been driven from the government; on the 2nd Prairial, from society; and it had lost both power and insurrections. But though disorganized and proscribed, it was far from having disappeared. After the unfortunate attempt of the royalists in Vendémiaire, it arose through their abasement.
The democrats re-established their club at the Panthéon, which the directory tolerated for some time. They had for their chief, "Gracchus" Babeuf, who styled himself the "Tribune of the people." He was a daring man, of an exalted imagination, an extraordinary fanaticism of democracy, and with great influence over his party. In his journal, he prepared the reign of general happiness. The society at the Panthéon daily became more numerous, and more alarming to the directory who at first endeavoured to restrain it. But the sittings were soon protracted to an advanced hour of the night; the democrats repaired thither in arms, and proposed marching against the directory and the councils. The directory determined to oppose them openly. On the 8th Ventôse, year IV. (February, 1796), it closed the society of the Panthéon, and on the 9th, by a message informed the legislative body that it had done so.
The democrats, deprived of their place of meeting, had recourse to another plan. They seduced the police force, which was chiefly composed of deposed revolutionists; and in concert with it, they were to destroy the constitution of the year III. The directory, informed of this new manoeuvre, disbanded the police force, causing it to be disarmed by other troops on whom it could rely. The conspirators, taken by surprise a second time, determined on a project of attack and insurrection: they formed an insurrectionary committee of public safety, which communicated by secondary agents with the lower orders of the twelve communes of Paris. The members of this principal committee were Babeuf, the chief of the conspiracy, ex-conventionalists, such as Vadier, Amar, Choudieu, Ricord, the representative Drouet, the former generals of the decemviral committee, Rossignol, Parrein, Fyon, Lami. Many cashiered officers, patriots of the departments, and the old Jacobin mass, composed the army of this faction. The chiefs often assembled in a place they called the Temple of Reason; here they sang lamentations on the death of Robespierre, and deplored the slavery of the people. They opened a negotiation with the troops of the camp of Grenelle, admitted among them a captain of that camp, named Grisel, whom they supposed their own, and concerted every measure for the attack.
Their plan was to establish common happiness; and for that purpose, to make a distribution of property, and to cause the government of true, pure, and absolute democrats to prevail; to create a convention composed of sixty-eight members of the Mountain, the remnant of the numbers proscribed since the reaction of Thermidor, and to join with these a democrat for each department; lastly, to start from the different quarters in which they had distributed themselves, and march at the same time against the directory and against the councils. On the night of the insurrection, they were to fix up two placards; one, containing the words, "The Constitution of 1793! liberty! equality! common happiness!" the other, containing the following declaration, "Those who usurp the sovereignty, ought to be put to death by free men." All was ready; the proclamations printed, the day appointed, when they were betrayed by Grisel, as generally happens in conspiracies.
On the 21st Floréal (May), the eve of the day fixed for the attack, the conspirators were seized at their regular place of meeting. In Babeuf's house were found a plan of the plot and all the documents connected with it. The directory apprised the councils of it by a message, and announced it to the people by proclamation. This strange attempt, savouring so strongly of fanaticism, and which could only be a repetition of the insurrection of Prairial, without its means and its hopes of success, excited the greatest terror. The public mind was still terrified with the recent domination of the Jacobins.
Babeuf, like a daring conspirator, prisoner as he was, proposed terms of peace to the directory:—