Editing French Directory (section)

=== 20th and 21st century ===
In 1909, [[Pyotr Kropotkin]] wrote:
:<blockquote>The Directory was a terribly orgy of the middle classes, in which the fortunes acquired during the Revolution, especially during the Thermidorean reaction, were squandered in unbridled luxury. For if the Revolution had put in circulation eight milliards of paper-money, the Thermidorean reaction went ten times as fast in that direction, for it issued the amazing sum of thirty milliards in paper ''within fifteen months''.<ref>[[Peter Kropotkin|Kropotkin, Pyotr Alexeyevich]], ''The Great French Revolution, 1789–1793'', chapter ''The 9th Thermidor'', translated by [[Nora Dryhurst|N. F. Dryhurst]], publisher Cosimo Classics, New York, 2009, p. 571. {{ISBN|978-1605206608}}</ref></blockquote>

In 1971, [[Robert Roswell Palmer]] wrote:
:<blockquote>The Directory became a kind of ineffective dictatorship. It repudiated most of the assignats [paper money] and the debt but failed to restore financial confidence or stability. Guerrilla activity flared up again in the Vendée and other parts of western France. The religious schism became more acute; the Directory took severe measures toward the refractory clergy [those who would not swear allegiance to the government].<ref name="Joel Colton 1971 p 412">R.R. Palmer and Joel Colton, ''A History of the Modern World'', 4th ed., 1971, p. 412</ref></blockquote>

In 1971, the American historians [[Jerome Blum]], [[Rondo Cameron]], and Thomas G. Barnes wrote:
:<blockquote>It was a government of self-interest rather than virtue, thus losing any claim on idealism. It never had a strong base of popular support; when elections were held, most of its candidates were defeated. Historians have been quite negative on the Directory's use of military force to overturn election returns that went against them. [...] Having by this coup d'état forfeited its claim to be a constitutional government, the Directory henceforth clung to power only by such illegal acts as purges and quashed elections.<ref name="Jerome Blum 1970 p 488">[[Jerome Blum]], Rondo Cameron, and Thomas G. Barnes, ''The European World – A History'', 2nd ed., 1970, p. 488</ref></blockquote>

In the 1970s, other historians wrote that the achievements of the Directory were minor, though it did establish administrative procedures and financial reforms that worked out well when Napoleon started using them.<ref name="Hunt 1979 p 735">Hunt, Lansky and Hanson, (1979) p. 735</ref><ref name="Directory 1975 pp. 159-73">Martyn Lyons, ''France under the Directory'' (1975), pp. 159–173</ref> It was blamed for creating chronic violence, ambivalent forms of justice, and repeated recourse to heavy-handed repression.<ref name="Howard G. Brown 2007 1">{{cite book|author=Howard G. Brown|title=Ending the French Revolution: Violence, Justice, and Repression from the Terror to Napoleon|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QccRae4wRZoC&pg=PA1|year=2007|publisher=U. of Virginia Press|page=1|isbn=978-0813927299}}</ref>

In 1994, Isser Woloch wrote:
:<blockquote>The Terror had left a dual legacy that made such normalcy impossible. On the one hand, massive disengagement, apathy, and cynicism about government; on the other hand, rancorous, violent hostility between the politically engaged minorities of royalists and Jacobins, between whom the directorial moderates vainly attempted to navigate. Legality became the main casualty in this situation.<ref>Isser Woloch, ''In the Aftermath of the French Revolution'', History Teacher, 1994, 28#1 pp. 7–11 [https://www.jstor.org/stable/494283 in JSTOR]</ref></blockquote>

In 2007, Howard Brown wrote:
:<blockquote>The four years of the Directory were a time of chronic disquiet and the late atrocities had made goodwill between parties impossible. The same instinct of self-preservation which had led the members of the Convention to claim so large a part in the new legislature and the whole of the Directory impelled them to keep their predominance. War was at the center of attention, not only for the survival of France but for the loot and forced payments into the French treasury.<ref>Howard G, Brown, ''French revolutionary studies – A Discredited Regime: The Directory and Army Contracting'', in ''French History'', Oxford University Press, 1990, 4#1 pp: 48–76.</ref></blockquote>