French Directory between Extremes 567
The Directory had twice violated the constitution on the plea of protecting it.
Nor was the plea by any means wholly false. By the coup d’état of Fructidor the
Directory had in all probability prevented a restoration of monarchy, and what a
restored monarchy would have been in 1797 may be judged from the statements of
Louis XVIII and of monarchists themselves. The issue in the coup d’état of Floréal
is more unclear. So far as the democrats and neo- Jacobins were constitutionally
minded, the crushing of their elections in 1798 may have lessened the chance for a
peaceable parliamentary development in the First Republic. So far as they cared
nothing for constitutional restraints, or so far as they wanted a new constitution
(which would have been the fourth in eight years), their coming into power would
have offered little basis for constitutional stabilization. In any event, the Directory,
having antagonized the Right in 1797, antagonzied the Left in 1798, and stood
alone. A republic could hardly subsist when the most ardent republicans had been
alienated.
It seems likely that the chances for a moderate and constitutional settlement
in France, in the years after 1795, were virtually nil. For one thing, the war was
still going on. Britain broke off the peace talks after Fructidor, and though Aus-
tria made peace, its re- entry into the war could be reasonably expected. Even with
governments well established, the needs and atmosphere of war are unfavorable
to constitutional experimentation and personal and political liberties. The Revo-
lution—or rather the last years of the Old Regime of which the Revolution itself
was merely the outcome—had left the country too divided, with too many mem-
ories, hopes and fears, hates and attachments, disillusionments and expectations,
for men to accept each other with mutual trust or political tolerance. Any con-
ceivable regime would have had to use force to repress intransigent adversaries.
There are times when real choices become very restricted, and consist in little
more than a choice of evils, when all that one can really decide, short of becoming
wholly unworldly, is which side he prefers to embrace and whose repression he
will condone.
The French Republic, even under the imperfect regime of the Directory, contin-
ued to exert an attraction for many restless people in Europe, who considered it to
represent a better way of life than the various regimes in their own countries under
which they lived. We turn now to the world outside of France.