Editing French Directory (section)

==Background==
{{more citations needed|section|date=October 2017}}<!--many subsections have no or few citations-->
[[File:Max Adamo Sturz Robespierres.JPG|thumb|left|upright=1.0|The Convention rises against Robespierre (27 July 1794)]]

The period known as the [[Reign of Terror]] began as a way of harnessing revolutionary fervour, but quickly degenerated into the settlement of personal grievances. On 17 September 1793, the [[Law of Suspects]] authorised the arrest of any suspected "enemies of freedom"; on 10 October, the [[National Convention]] recognised the [[Committee of Public Safety]] under [[Maximilien Robespierre]] as the [[National Convention#Revolutionary government|supreme authority]], and suspended the [[French Constitution of 1793|Constitution]] until "peace was achieved".{{sfn|Kennedy|2000|p=53}}

According to archival records, from September 1793 to July 1794 some 16,600 people were executed on charges of counter-revolutionary activity; another 40,000 may have been summarily executed or died awaiting trial.{{sfn|Gough|1998|p=77}} At its peak, the slightest hint of counter-revolutionary thoughts could place one under suspicion, and even his supporters began to fear their own survival depended on removing Robespierre. On 27 July, [[9 Thermidor (Fall of Robespierre)|he and his allies]] were arrested and executed the next day.{{sfn|Schama|1989|pp=840–844}}

In July 1794, the Convention established a committee to draft what became the [[Constitution of the Year III|1795 Constitution]]. Largely designed by [[Pierre Claude François Daunou|Pierre Daunou]] and [[François Antoine de Boissy d'Anglas|Boissy d'Anglas]], it established a [[bicameral legislature]], intended to slow down the legislative process, ending the wild swings of policy under the previous unicameral systems. Deputies were chosen by indirect election, a total franchise of around 5 million voting in primaries for 30,000 electors, or 0.5% of the population. Since they were also subject to stringent property qualification, it guaranteed the return of conservative or moderate deputies.{{sfn|Lyons|1975|pp=18–19}}

The Directory was established after the Constitution of Year III which was [[1795 French constitutional referendum|adopted by a referendum]] on 24 September 1795,<ref name="French Revolutions p.495">Chronicle of the French Revolutions, Longman 1989 p.495</ref> and constituted after the [[1795 French legislative election|first elections]] which were held from 12–21 October 1795. On 25 October the [[National Convention]] held its last meeting; the [[Committee of Public Safety]] was dissolved or rather disappeared before the end of the month.<ref>Biard, M. (2014). Raphaël Matta-Duvignau, Gouverner, administrer révolutionnairement : le comité de Salut public (6 avril 1793 – 4 brumaire an IV): Paris, L'Harmattan, 2013. Annales historiques de la Révolution française, 378, 151–154. https://www.cairn.info/revue--2014-4-page-151.htm.</ref> On 31 October, in addition to [[Paul Barras]], [[Jean-François Reubell]], [[Louis-Marie de La Révellière-Lépeaux]], [[Étienne-François Le Tourneur]] and [[Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès]] were chosen as Directors.

At the end of October a legislature consisting of the [[Council of 500]] was created,<ref>Gazette nationale ou le Moniteur universel, 1 novembre 1795, p. 4</ref> responsible for drafting legislation, and [[Council of Ancients]], an upper house containing 250 men over the age of 40, who would review and approve it. Executive power was in the hands of five Directors, selected by the Council of Ancients from a list provided by the lower house, with a five-year mandate. This was intended to prevent executive power being concentrated in the hands of one man.{{sfn|Lyons|1975|pp=18–19}}

D'Anglas wrote to the Convention:
<blockquote>We propose to you to compose an executive power of five members, renewed with one new member each year, called the Directory. This executive will have a force concentrated enough that it will be swift and firm, but divided enough to make it impossible for any member to even consider becoming a tyrant. A single chief would be dangerous. Each member will preside for three months; he will have during this time the signature and seal of the head of state. By the slow and gradual replacement of members of the Directory, you will preserve the advantages of order and continuity and will have the advantages of unity without the inconveniences.<ref name=tulard/></blockquote>

===Drafting the new Constitution===

The 1789 [[Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen]] was attached as a preamble, declaring "the Rights of Man in society are liberty, equality, security, and property".{{sfn|Tulard|Fayard|Fierro|1998|p=702}} It guaranteed freedom of religion, freedom of the press, and freedom of labour, but forbade armed assemblies and even public meetings of political societies. Only individuals or public authorities could tender petitions.

[[File:François Boissy d-Anglas.jpg|thumb|right|upright=0.8|[[François Antoine de Boissy d'Anglas]], one of the principal authors of the [[Constitution of 1795]]]]

The judicial system was reformed, and judges were given short terms of office: two years for justices of the peace, five for judges of department tribunals. They were elected, and could be re-elected, to assure their independence from the other branches of government.

The new legislature had two houses, a [[Council of Five Hundred]] and a [[Council of Ancients]] with two hundred fifty members. Electoral assemblies in each [[Cantons of France|''canton'' of France]], which brought together a total of thirty thousand qualified electors, chose representatives to an electoral assembly in each [[Departments of France|department]], which then elected the members of both houses. The members of this legislature had a term of three years, with one-third of the members renewed every year. The Ancients could not initiate new laws, but could veto those proposed by the Council of Five Hundred.

The Constitution established a unique kind of executive, a five-man Directory chosen by the legislature.<ref>J. F,. Bosher, ''The French Revolution'' (1988), pp. 226–230</ref><ref>Gershoy, ''The French Revolution and Napoleon'' (1964) pp. 303–308</ref> It required the Council of Five Hundred to prepare, by secret ballot, a list of candidates for the Directory. The Council of Ancients then chose, again by secret ballot, the Directors from that provided list. The Constitution required that Directors be at least forty years old. To assure gradual but continual change, one Director, chosen by lot, was replaced each year. Ministers for the various departments of State aided the Directors. These ministers did not form a council or cabinet and had no general powers of government.

The new Constitution sought to create a [[separation of powers]]; the Directors had no voice in legislation or taxation, nor could Directors or Ministers sit in either house. To assure that the Directors would have some independence, each would be elected by one portion of the legislature, and they could not be removed by the legislature unless they violated the law.<ref name=tulard>Jean Tulard, Jean-François Fayard, Alfred Fierro, ''Histoire et dictionnaire de la Révolution française'', Robert Laffont, Paris, 1998, pp. 198–199. (In French)</ref>

Under the new [[Constitution of 1795]], to be eligible to vote in the elections for the Councils, voters were required to meet certain minimum property and residency standards. In towns with over six thousand population, they had to own or rent a property with a revenue equal to the standard income for at least one hundred fifty or two hundred days of work, and to have lived in their residence for at least a year. This ruled out a large part of the French population.

The greatest victim under the new system was the City of Paris, which had dominated events in the first part of the Revolution. On 24 August 1794, the committees of the sections of Paris, bastions of the Jacobins which had provided most of the manpower for demonstrations and invasions of the Convention, were abolished. Shortly afterwards, on 31 August, the municipality of Paris, which had been the domain of Danton and Robespierre, was abolished, and the city placed under direct control of the national government. When the Law of 19 [[Vendémiaire]] Year IV (11 October 1795), in application of the [[Constitution of the Year III|new Constitution]], created the first twelve ''[[arrondissement]]s'' of Paris, it established twelve new committees, one for each ''arrondissement''. The city became a new [[Departments of France|department]], the [[Seine (department)|Department of the Seine]], replacing the former Department of Paris created in 1790.<ref>Fierro, Alfred, ''Histoire et dictionnaire de Paris'' (1996), Robert Laffont, p. 608, (French)</ref><ref>''Loi du 19 vendémiaire, an 4. Tableau de l'emplacement des chef lieux de département'', published in 1795, 15 pages [https://books.google.com/books?id=5rN9mgEACAAJ]</ref>

===Political developments (July 1794 – March 1795)===
[[File:Paul Barras directeur.jpg|thumb|left|upright=0.8|[[Paul Barras]], who defended the government against attacks from the left and right]]
Meanwhile, the leaders of the still ruling [[National Convention]] tried to meet challenges from both neo-Jacobins on the left and royalists on the right. On 21 September 1794, the remains of [[Jean-Paul Marat]], whose furious articles had promoted the Reign of Terror, were placed with great ceremony in the [[Panthéon]], while on the same day, the moderate Convention member [[Antoine Christophe Merlin|Merlin de Thionville]] described the Jacobins as "A hangout of outlaws" and the "knights of the guillotine". Young men known as [[Muscadins]], largely from middle-class families, attacked the Jacobin and radical clubs. The new freedom of the press saw the appearance of a host of new newspapers and pamphlets from the left and the right, such as the royalist ''L'Orateur du peuple'' edited by [[Louis-Marie Stanislas Fréron|Stanislas Fréron]], an extreme Jacobin who had moved to the extreme right, and at the opposite end of the spectrum, the ''Tribun du peuple'', edited by [[François-Noël Babeuf|Gracchus Babeuf]], a former priest who advocated an early version of [[socialism]]. On 5 February 1795, the semi-official newspaper ''[[Le Moniteur Universel]]'' (''Le Moniteur'') attacked Marat for encouraging the bloody extremes of the [[Reign of Terror]]. Marat's remains were removed from the Panthéon two days later.{{sfn|Tulard|Fayard|Fierro|1998|p=375}} The surviving [[Girondin]] deputies, whose leaders had been executed during the Reign of Terror, were brought back into the Convention on 8 March 1795.

The Convention tried to bring a peaceful end to the Catholic and royalist [[War in the Vendée|uprising in the Vendée]]. The Convention signed an amnesty agreement, promising to recognize the freedom of religion and allowing territorial guards to keep their weapons if the ''Vendéens'' would end their revolt. On a proposal from Boissy d'Anglas, on 21 February 1795 the Convention formally proclaimed the freedom of religion and the separation of church and state.{{sfn|Tulard|Fayard|Fierro|1998|p=375}}

===Foreign policy===
Between July 1794 and the October 1795 elections for the new-style Parliament, the government tried to obtain international peace treaties and secure French gains. In January 1795 General [[Jean-Charles Pichegru|Pichegru]] took advantage of an extremely cold winter and invaded the [[Dutch Republic]]. He captured [[Utrecht]] on 18 January, and on 14 February units of French cavalry captured the Dutch fleet, which was trapped in the ice at [[Den Helder]]. The Dutch government asked for peace, conceding [[Zeelandic Flanders|Dutch Flanders]], [[Maastricht]] and [[Venlo]] to France. On 9 February, after a French offensive in the Alps, [[Ferdinand III, Grand Duke of Tuscany]] signed a treaty with France. Soon afterwards, on 5 April, France signed a peace treaty, the [[Peace of Basel]], with [[Prussia]], where King [[Frederick William II of Prussia|Frederick William II]] was tired of the war; Prussia recognized the French occupation of the western bank of the [[Rhine]]. On 22 July 1795, a peace agreement, the "Treaty of Basel", was signed with Spain, where the [[French Revolutionary Army]] had marched as far as [[Bilbao]] in the [[War of the Pyrenees]]. By the time the Directory was chosen, the coalition against France was reduced to [[Kingdom of Great Britain|Britain]] and [[Habsburg monarchy|Austria]], which hoped that [[Russian Empire|Russia]] might be brought in on its side.

=== Failed Jacobin coup (May 1795) and rebellion in Brittany (June–July) ===
{{main|Revolt of 1 Prairial Year III}}
[[File:Louis Lazare Hoche1.jpg|thumb|right|upright=0.8|General [[Lazare Hoche]] defeated a royalist army that landed in Brittany (July 1795)]]
On 20 May 1795 (1 [[Prairial]] Year III), the Jacobins attempted to seize power in Paris. Following the model of Danton's seizure of the National Assembly in June 1792, a mob of [[sans-culottes]] invaded the meeting hall of the Convention at the [[Tuileries Palace]], killed one deputy, and demanded that a new government be formed. This time the army moved swiftly to clear the hall. Several deputies who had taken the side of the invaders were arrested. The uprising continued the following day, as the sans-culottes seized the ''[[Hôtel de Ville, Paris|Hôtel de Ville]]'' as they had done in earlier uprisings, but with little effect; crowds did not move to support them. On the third day, 22 May, the army moved into and occupied the working-class neighborhood of the [[Faubourg Saint-Antoine]]. The sans-culottes were disarmed and their leaders were arrested. In the following days the surviving members of the Committee of Public Safety, the committee that had been led by Robespierre, were arrested, with the exception of [[Lazare Carnot|Carnot]] and two others. Six of the deputies who had participated in the uprising and had been sentenced to death committed suicide before they were taken to the guillotine.{{sfn|Tulard|Fayard|Fierro|1998|p=378}}

On 23 June 1795, the [[Chouan]]s, royalist and Catholic rebels in [[Brittany]], formed an army of 14,000 men near [[Quiberon]]. With the assistance of the British navy, a force of two thousand royalists was [[Invasion of France (1795)|landed at Quiberon]]. The French army under General [[Lazare Hoche]] reacted swiftly, forcing the royalists to take refuge on the peninsula and then to withdraw. They surrendered on 21 July; 748 of the rebels were executed by firing squad.{{sfn|Tulard|Fayard|Fierro|1998|p=379}}

=== Adoption of the new Constitution ===

The new [[Constitution of the Year III]] was presented to the Convention and debated between 4 July – 17 August 1795, and was formally adopted on 22 August 1795. It was a long document, with 377 articles, compared with 124 in the first [[French Constitution of 1793]]. Even before it took effect, however, the members of the Convention took measures to assure they would still have dominance in the legislature over the government. They required that in the first elections, two hundred and fifty new deputies would be elected, while five hundred members of the old Convention would remain in place until the next elections. A national referendum of eligible voters was then held. The total number of voters was low; of five million eligible voters, 1,057,390 electors approved the Constitution, and 49,978 opposed it. The proposal that two thirds of members of the old Convention should remain in place was approved by a much smaller margin, 205,498 to 108,754.{{sfn|Tulard|Fayard|Fierro|1998|p=199}}

=== October 1795 royalist rebellion ===
{{main|13 Vendémiaire}}
[[File:Attaque de la Convention nationale, 1790.jpg|thumb|left|upright=0.8|Government troops under [[Napoleon]] fire on insurgents near [[Saint-Roch, Paris]], 5 October 1795]]

The new [[Constitution of the Year III]] was officially proclaimed in force on 23 September 1795, but the new Councils had not yet been elected, and the Directors had not yet been chosen. The leaders of the royalists and constitutional monarchists chose this moment to try to seize power. They saw that the vote in favor of the new Constitution was hardly overwhelming. Paris voters were particularly hostile to the idea of keeping two-thirds of the old members of the Convention in the new Councils. A central committee was formed, with members from the wealthier neighborhoods of Paris, and they began planning a march on the center of the city and on the Tuileries, where the Convention still met.

The members of the Convention, very much experienced with conspiracies, were well aware that the planning was underway. A group of five republican deputies, led by [[Paul Barras]], had already formed an unofficial directory, in anticipation of the creation of the real one. They were concerned about the [[National Guard (France)|National Guard]] members from western Paris, and were unsure about the military commander of Paris, General [[Jacques-François Menou]]. Barras decided to turn to military commanders in his entourage who were known republicans, particularly [[Napoleon Bonaparte]], whom he had known when Bonaparte was successfully [[Siege of Toulon (1793)|fighting the British in Toulon]]. Bonaparte, at this point a general of second rank in the [[Army of the Interior]], was ordered to defend the government buildings on the right bank.

The armed royalist insurgents planned a march in two columns along both the right bank and left bank of the [[Seine]] toward the Tuileries. There on 5 October 1795, the royalists were met by the artillery of ''sous-lieutenant'' [[Joachim Murat]] at the Sablons and by Bonaparte's soldiers and artillery in front of the church of [[Saint-Roch, Paris|Saint-Roch]]. Over the next two hours, the "[[13 Vendémiaire|whiff of grapeshot]]" of Bonaparte's cannons and gunfire of his soldiers brutally mowed down advancing columns, killing some four hundred insurgents, and ending the rebellion. Bonaparte was promoted to General of Division on 16 October, and General in Chief of the Army of the Interior on 26 October. It was the last uprising to take place in Paris during the French Revolution.{{sfn|Tulard|Fayard|Fierro|1998|p=202}}