Barras, Rewbell and La Révellière-Lépeaux then sought help from the armies. Although Royalists formed but a petty fraction of the majority, they raised the alarm that it was seeking to restore monarchy and undo the work Coup d’état of the 18th Fructidor. of the Revolution. Hoche, then in command of the army of the Sambre and Meuse, visited Paris and sent troops. Bonaparte sent General Augereau, who executed the coup d’état of the 18th Fructidor (September 4). The councils were purged, the elections in forty-nine departments were cancelled, and many deputies and other men of note were arrested. Some of them, including Barthélemy, were deported to Cayenne. Carnot made good his escape. The two vacant places in the Directory were filled by Merlin of Douai and François of Neufchâteau. Then the government frankly returned to Jacobin methods. The law against the relatives of émigrés was reenacted, and military tribunals were established to condemn émigrés who should return to France. The nonjuring priests were again persecuted. Many hundreds were either sent to Cayenne or imprisoned in the hulks of Ré and Oleron. La Révellière Lépeaux seized the opportunity to propagate his religion. Many churches were turned into Theophilanthropic temples. The government strained its power to secure the recognition of the décadi as the day of public worship and the non-observance of Sunday. Liberty of the press ceased. Newspapers were confiscated and journalists were deported wholesale. It was proposed to banish from France all members of the old noblesse. Although the proposal was dropped, they were all declared to be foreigners and were forced to obtain naturalization if they would enjoy the rights of other citizens. A formal bankruptcy of the state, the cancelling of two-thirds of the interest on the public debt, crowned the misgovernment of this disastrous time.
In the spring of 1798 not only a new third of the legislature had to be chosen, but the places of the members expelled by the revolution of Fructidor had to be filled. The constitutional party had been rendered helpless, and the mass of the electors were indifferent. But among the Jacobins themselves there had arisen an extreme party hostile to the directors. With the support of many who were not Jacobins but detested the government, it bade fair to gain a majority. Before the new deputies could take their seats the directors forced through the councils the law of the 22nd Floréal (May 11), annulling or perverting the elections in thirty departments and excluding forty-eight deputies by name. Even this coup d’état did not secure harmony between the executive and the legislature. In the councils the directors were loudly charged with corruption and misgovernment. The retirement of François of Neufchâteau and the choice of Treilhard as his successor made no difference in the position of the Directory.
While France was thus inwardly convulsed, its rulers were doubly bound to husband the national strength and practise moderation towards other states. Since December 1797 a congress had been sitting at Rastadt to regulate the future of Germany. That it should be brought to a successful conclusion was of the utmost import for France. But the directors were driven by self-interest to new adventures abroad. Bonaparte was resolved not to sink into obscurity, and the directors were anxious to keep him as far as possible from Paris; they therefore sanctioned the expedition to Egypt which deprived the Republic of its best army and most renowned captain. Coveting the treasures of Bern, they sent Brune to invade Switzerland and remodel its constitution; in revenge for the murder of General Duphot, they sent Berthier to invade the papal states and erect the Roman Republic; they occupied and virtually annexed Piedmont. In all these countries they organized such an effective pillage that the French became universally hateful. As the armies were far below the strength required by the policy of unbounded conquest and rapine, the first permanent law of conscription was passed in the summer of 1798. The attempt to enforce it caused a revolt of the peasants in the Belgian departments. The priests were made responsible and some eight thousand were condemned in a mass to deportation, although much the greater part escaped by the goodwill of the people. Few soldiers were obtained by the conscription, for the government was as weak as it was tyrannical.
Under these circumstances Nelson’s victory of Aboukir (1st of August), which gave the British full command of the Mediterranean and secluded Bonaparte in Egypt, was the signal for a second coalition. Naples, Austria, Russia and The second coalition. Turkey joined Great Britain against France. Ferdinand of Naples, rashly taking the offensive before his allies were ready, was defeated and forced to seek a refuge in Sicily. In January 1799 the French occupied Naples and set up the Parthenopean republic. But the consequent dispersion of their weak forces only exposed them to greater peril. At home the Directory was in a most critical position. In the elections of April 1799 a large number of Jacobins gained seats. A little later Rewbell retired. It was imperative to fill his place with a man of ability and influence. The choice fell upon Sieyès, who had kept aloof from office and retained not only his immeasurable self-conceit but the respect of the public. Sieyès felt that the Directory was bankrupt of reputation, and he intended to be far more than a mere member of a board. He hoped to concentrate power in his own hands, to bridle the Jacobins, and to remodel the constitution. With the help of Barras he proceeded to rid himself of the other directors. An irregularity having been discovered in Treilhard’s election, he retired, and his place was taken by Gohier. Merlin of Douai and La Révellière Lépeaux were driven to resign in June. They were succeeded by Moulin and Ducos. The three new directors were so insignificant that they could give no trouble, but for the same reason they were of little service.
Such a government was ill fitted to cope with the dangers then gathering round France. The directors having resolved on the offensive in Germany, the French crossed the Rhine early in March, but were defeated by the archduke French reverses. The Directory discredited. Charles at Stockach on the 25th. The congress at Rastadt, which had sat for fifteen months without doing anything, broke up in April and the French envoys were murdered by Austrian hussars. In Italy the allies took the offensive with an army partly Austrian, partly Russian under the command of Suvárov. After defeating Moreau at Cassano on the 27th of April, he occupied Milan and Turin. The republics established by the French in Italy were overthrown, and the French army retreating from Naples was defeated by Suvárov on the Trebbia. Thus threatened with invasion on her German and Italian frontiers, France was disabled by anarchy within. The finances were in the last distress; the anti-religious policy of the government kept many departments on the verge of revolt; and commerce was almost suspended by the decay of roads and the increase of bandits. There was no real political freedom, yet none of the ease or security which enlightened despotism can bestow. The Terrorists lifted their heads in the Council of Five Hundred. A Law of Hostages, which was really a new Law of Suspects, and a progressive income tax showed the temper of the majority. The Jacobin Club was reopened and became once more the focus of disorder. The Jacobin press renewed the licence of Hébert and Marat. Never since the outbreak of the Revolution had the public temper been so gloomy and desponding.
In this extremity Sieyès chose as minister of police the old Terrorist Fouché, who best understood how to deal with his brethren. Fouché closed the Jacobin Club and deported a number of journalists. But like his predecessors Sieyès felt that for the revolution which he meditated he must have the help of a soldier. As his man of action he chose General Joubert, one of the most distinguished among French officers. Joubert was sent to restore the fortune of the war in Italy. At Novi on the 15th of August he encountered Suvárov. He was killed at the outset of the battle and his men were defeated. After this disaster the French held scarcely anything south of the Alps save Genoa. The Russian and Austrian governments then agreed to drive the enemy out of Switzerland and to invade France from the east. At the same time Holland was assailed by the joint forces of Great Britain and Russia. But the second coalition, like the first, was doomed to failure by the narrow views and conflicting interests of its members. The invasion of Switzerland was baffled by want of concert between Austrians and Russians and by Masséna’s victory at Zürich on the 25th and 26th of September. In October the British and the Russians were forced to evacuate Holland. All immediate danger to France was ended, but the issue of the war was still in suspense. The directors had been forced to recall Bonaparte from Egypt. He anticipated their order and on the 9th of October landed at Fréjus.
Dazzled by his victories in the East the public forgot that the Egyptian expedition was ending in calamity. It received him with an ardour which convinced Sieyès that he was the indispensable soldier. Bonaparte was ready to act, Coup d’état of the 18th Brumaire. but at his own time and for his own ends. Since the close of the Convention affairs at home and abroad had been tending more and more surely to the establishment of a military dictatorship. Feeling his powers equal to such an office he only hesitated about the means of attainment. At first he thought of becoming a director; finally he decided upon a partnership with Sieyès. They resolved to end the actual government by a fresh coup d’état. Means were to be taken for removing the councils from Paris to St Cloud, where pressure could more easily be applied. Then the councils would be induced to decree a provisional government by three consuls and the appointment of a commission to revise the constitution. The pretext for this irregular proceeding was to be a vast Jacobin conspiracy. Perhaps the gravest obstacles were to be expected from the army. Of the generals, some, like Jourdan, were honest republicans; others, like Bernadotte, believed themselves capable of governing France. With perfect subtlety Bonaparte worked on the feelings of all and kept his own intentions secret.
On the morning of the 18th Brumaire (November 9) the Ancients, to whom that power belonged, decreed the transference of the councils to St Cloud. Of the directors, Sieyès and his friend Ducos had arranged to resign; Barras was cajoled and bribed into resigning; Gohier and Moulins, who were intractable, found themselves imprisoned in the Luxemburg palace and helpless. So far all had gone well. But when the councils met at St Cloud on the following day, the majority of the Five Hundred showed themselves bent on resistance, and even the Ancients gave signs of wavering. When Bonaparte addressed the Ancients, he lost his self-possession and made a deplorable figure. When he appeared among the Five Hundred, they fell upon him with such fury that he was hardly rescued by his officers. A motion to outlaw him was only baffled by the audacity of the president, his brother Lucien. At length driven to undisguised violence, he sent in his grenadiers, who turned out the deputies. Then the Ancients passed a decree which adjourned the Councils for three months, appointed Bonaparte, Sieyès and Ducos provisional consuls, and named the Legislative Commission. Some tractable members of the Five Hundred were afterwards swept up and served to give these measures the confirmation of their House. Thus the Directory and the Councils came to their unlamented end. A shabby compound of brute force and imposture, the 18th Brumaire was nevertheless condoned, nay applauded, by the French nation. Weary of revolution, men sought no more than to be wisely and firmly governed.
Although the French Revolution seemed to contemporaries a total break in the history of France, it was really far otherwise. Its results were momentous and durable in proportion as they were the outcome of causes which had been General estimate of the Revolution. working long. In France there had been no historic preparation for political freedom. The desire for such freedom was in the main confined to the upper classes. During the Revolution it was constantly baffled. No Assembly after the states-general was freely elected and none deliberated in freedom. After the Revolution Bonaparte established a monarchy even more absolute than the monarchy of Louis XIV. But the desire for uniformity, for equality and for what may be termed civil liberty was the growth of ages, had been in many respects nurtured by the action of the crown and its ministers, and had become intense and general. Accordingly it determined the principal results of the Revolution. Uniformity of laws and institutions was enforced throughout France. The legal privileges formerly distinguishing different classes were suppressed. An obsolete and burthensome agrarian system was abolished. A number of large estates belonging to the crown, the clergy and the nobles were broken up and sold at nominal prices to men of the middle or lower class. The new jurisprudence encouraged the multiplication of small properties. The new fiscal system taxed men according to their means and raised no obstacle to commerce within the national boundaries. Every calling and profession was made free to all French citizens, and in the public service the principle of an open career for talent was adopted. Religious disabilities vanished, and there was well-nigh complete liberty of thought. It was because Napoleon gave a practical form to these achievements of the Revolution and ensured the public order necessary to their continuance that the majority of Frenchmen endured so long the fearful sacrifices which his policy exacted.
That a revolution largely inspired by generous and humane feeling should have issued in such havoc and such crimes is a paradox which astounded spectators and still perplexes the historian. Something in the cruelty of the French Revolution may be ascribed to national character. From the time when Burgundians and Armagnacs strove for dominion down to the last insurrection of Paris, civil discord in France has always been cruel. More, however, was due to the total dissolution of society which followed the meeting of the states-general. In the course of the Revolution we can discover no well-organized party, no governing mind. Mirabeau had the stuff of a great statesman, and Danton was capable of statesmanship. But these men were not followed or obeyed save by accident or for a moment. Those who seemed to govern were usually the sport of chance, often the victims of their colleagues. Neither Royalists nor Feuillants nor Girondins had the instinct of government. In the chaotic state of France all ferocious and destructive passions found ample scope. The same conditions explain the triumph of the Jacobins. Devoid of wisdom and virtue in the highest sense, they at least understood how power might be seized and kept. The Reign of Terror was the expedient of a party which knew its weakness and unpopularity. It was not necessary either to secure the lasting benefits of the Revolution or to save France from dismemberment; for nine Frenchmen out of ten were agreed on both of these points and were ready to lay down their lives for the national cause.