Editing French Directory (section)

=== Second Directory and resurgence of the Jacobins ===
The coup was followed by a scattering of uprisings by royalists in [[Aix-en-Provence]], [[Tarascon]] and other towns, particularly in the southwest and west. A commissioner of the Directory was assassinated in [[Lyon]], and on 22 October counter-revolutionaries seized the city government of [[Carpentras]] for twenty-four hours. These brief uprisings served only to justify a wave of repression from the new government.{{sfn|Lefebvre|1977|pp=439–440}}

With Carnot and Barthélemy gone from the Directory, and the royalists expelled from the Councils, the Jacobins were once again in control of the government. The two vacant places in the Directory were filled by [[Philippe Antoine, comte Merlin|Merlin de Douai]], a lawyer who had helped write the [[Law of Suspects]] during the Reign of Terror; and [[François de Neufchâteau]], a poet and expert in industry inland navigation, who served only a few months. Eight of the twelve Directors and ministers of the new government were regicides, who as deputies of the Convention had voted for the execution of Louis XVI, and were now determined to continue the Revolution.<ref>Albert Soboul, ''The French Revolution'' (1975) p. 508</ref>{{sfn|Tulard|Fayard|Fierro|1998|p=1030}}

The central administration and city governments were quickly purged of suspected royalists. The next target was the wave of noble ''émigrés'' and priests who had begun to return to France. The Jacobins in the Councils demanded that the law of 1793 be enforced; ''émigrés'' were ordered to leave France within fifteen days. If they did not, they were to be judged by a military commission, and, on simple proof of their identity, were to be executed within twenty-four hours. Military commissions were established throughout the country to judge not only returning ''émigrés'', but also rebels and conspirators. Between 4 September 1797 and the end of the Directory in 1799, 160 persons were condemned to death by the military tribunals, including 41 priests and several women.{{sfn|Lefebvre|1977|pp=441–442}}

On 16 October 1797, the Council of Five Hundred considered a new law which banned political activities by nobles, who were to be considered as foreigners, and had to apply for naturalization in order to take part in politics. A certain number, listed by names, were to be banned permanently from political activity, were to have their property confiscated, and were to be required to leave immediately. The law called for certain exemptions for those in the government and military (Director Barras and General Bonaparte were both from minor noble families). In the end, resistance to the law was so great that it was not adopted.{{sfn|Lefebvre|1977|pp=452–453}}

The Jacobin-dominated councils also demanded the deportation of priests who refused to take an oath to the government, and an oath declaring their hatred of royalty and anarchy. 267 priests were deported to the French penal colony of Cayenne in French Guiana, of whom 111 survived and returned to France. 920 were sent to a prison colony on the [[Île de Ré]], and 120, a large part of them Belgians, to another colony on the [[Oléron|Île d'Oléron]].{{sfn|Lefebvre|1977|p=445}}<ref>See: ''Seuls les morts ne reviennent jamais : les pionniers de la guillotine sèche en Guyane française'', Philippe de Ladebat, ed. Amalthée, France, 2008 – http://site.voila.fr/fructidor/page1.html {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100122025000/http://site.voila.fr/fructidor/page1.html |date=22 January 2010 }}</ref> The new government continued the anti-religious policy of the Convention. Several churches, including the cathedral [[Notre Dame de Paris]] and the church of [[Church of Saint-Sulpice, Paris|Saint-Sulpice]], were converted into [[Theophilanthropic]] temples, a new religion based on the belief in the existence of God and the immortality of the human spirit. Religious observations were forbidden on Sunday; they were allowed only on the last day of the 10-day week (''décade'') of the [[French Republican Calendar]].{{sfn|Tulard|Fayard|Fierro|1998|p=231}} Other churches remained closed, and were forbidden to ring their bells, although many religious services took place in secret in private homes. The National Guard was mobilized to search rural areas and forests for priests and nobles in hiding. As during the Reign of Terror, lists were prepared of suspects, who would be arrested in the event of attempted uprisings.{{sfn|Lefebvre|1977|pp=441–442}}

The new Jacobin-dominated Directory and government also targeted the press. Newspaper publishers were required to submit copies of their publications to the police for official approval. On 17 December 1797, seventeen Paris newspapers were closed by order of the Directory. The Directory also imposed a substantial tax on all newspapers or magazines distributed by mail, although Jacobin publications, as well as scientific and art publications, were excluded. Books critical of the Jacobins were censored; [[Louis-Marie Prudhomme]]'s six-volume ''Histoire générale et impartiale des erreurs, des fautes et des crimes commis pendant la Révolution française''<ref>''Histoire générale et impartiale des erreurs, des fautes et des crimes commis pendant la Révolution française'', Faubourg Saint-Germain, Paris, 1797, (Bibliothèque nationale de France)[http://gallica.bnf.fr/services/engine/search/sru?operation=searchRetrieve&version=1.2&collapsing=disabled&query=%28gallica%20all%20%22Histoire%20g%C3%A9n%C3%A9rale%20et%20impartiale%20des%20erreurs%2C%20des%20fautes%20et%20des%20crimes%20commis%20pendant%20la%20R%C3%A9volution%20fran%C3%A7aise%22%29%20and%20dc.relation%20all%20%22cb37250832j%22]</ref> ("General and impartial history of the errors, faults and crimes committed during the French Revolution") was seized by the police. The Directory also authorized the opening and reading of letters coming from outside of France.{{sfn|Lefebvre|1977|p=452}}
  
Despite all these security measures, there was a great increase in brigandage and robbery in the French countryside; travelers were frequently stopped on roads and robbed; the robberies were often blamed on royalist bands. On 18 January 1798, the Councils passed a new law against highwaymen and bandits, calling for them to be tried by military tribunals, and authorizing the death penalty for robbery or attempted robbery on the roads of France.{{sfn|Lefebvre|1977|pp=449–550}}

The political repression and terror under the Directory were real, but they were on a much smaller scale than the Reign of Terror under Robespierre and the Convention, and the numbers of those repressed declined during the course of the Directory. After 1798, no further political prisoners were sent to French Guiana, and, in the final year of the Directory, only one person was executed for a political offense.{{sfn|Lefebvre|1977|p=455}}