534 Chapter XXII
former members of the Convention. The members of the post- Robespierrist Con-
vention saw no other way of assuring not only their personal security but the con-
tinuity of republican institutions than by thus perpetuating themselves at least
temporarily in office. But in so doing they made a great many enemies, who at-
tempted in October 1795 (Vendémiaire of the Year IV ) to block the two- thirds
decree or indeed to stop the introduction of the republican constitution itself. This
uprising of Vendémiaire was led by royalists and anti- republicans, against whom
the outgoing Convention used the services of a young general then in the city,
Napoleon Bonaparte, who fired his “whiff of grapeshot” on this occasion. The Di-
rectory (as the whole regime came to be called) thereupon established itself. It had
been dependent on military protection for its very birth. And from the beginning
a good deal of the activity in politics (for it was at first sufficiently liberal to allow
“politics”) was aimed at the election scheduled for March 1797, at which time the
two- thirds rule would not obtain, so that persons opposed to the whole system
might be elected to the two chambers.
The Directory looked like a government, and indeed was one, the first constitu-
tional republican government on modern principles that France or Europe had
seen. It was meant to be of moderate or intermediate political color. But from the
beginning there was a certain lack of substance in the Directory, which was indeed
something of a mirage, because so many of the real forces and realities of political
life lay outside it, distributed elsewhere along the spectrum. If the Directory failed,
as it did, the failure was due in part to the war, yet in other political conditions
peace might have been made. It was due partly to economic troubles and inflation,
yet inflation was brought under control; and partly to religious troubles and con-
flict with the Church, yet these were less irreconcilable than they seemed later in
retrospect. It was not due to the incompetence of the men in power, who were by
no means incompetent, nor to faults in the constitution, which under more favor-
able conditions might have been made to work or been modified into something
workable.
The difficulty was that the Directory occupied too narrow a band in the spec-
trum. It was never able to broaden its base. Not even all moderates could agree on
it. There were too many people who refused to accept it with any finality—French-
men who saw in it only an interim arrangement preceding one more to their lik-
ing, whether more royal or more democratic; and foreign powers, at war with it,
which hoped and expected that if they waited long enough this republican experi-
ment would collapse and be forgotten.
Never during its four- year life was the Directory able to formulate a clear pro-
gram or policy, either on internal problems or on questions of war and peace and
revolutionary movements in other countries. Five in number at any given moment,
the Directors were a changing body, one being replaced each year constitutionally,
with additional replacements through irregularities in September 1797 and June
1799, so that thirteen persons, all told, served as Directors. Only one was in office
throughout, namely Barras; but Barras was never as influential as some of his col-
leagues, especially Reubell, who was in office for over three years and had the main
voice in foreign policy, and LaRévellière- Lépeaux, who lasted over three years and
was mainly interested in the propagation of natural religion. No combination of