With the fall of the Jacobin government and the execution of most of its leaders at the guillotine, the way was open for the French upper bourgeoisie to regain political power. This period was known as the Directoryand occurred between 1794and 1799. But what were its main features?
The first that can be cited is related to the way political power was organized in France. The Directory was a body composed of five members, whose function was to administer the country, supported by two assemblies: the Assembly of Elders, formed by older politicians; and the Assembly of the Five Hundred.
During this period of the French Revolution, there was a suppression of egalitarian social rights instituted in the Jacobin period, such as the right to vote for all citizens and the end of some laws: the one that stipulated the maximum prices for food, the one that regulated the distribution of land confiscated from the nobility and clergy among the poor population, as well as that which allowed the organization of workers in unions.
The period of the Directory represented the establishment by the French bourgeoisie of a moderate Republic, which ended the institutions of the Old Regime, but limited political participation, with the return of the census vote and the fight against the egalitarianism defended by the Jacobins.
But the bourgeoisie did not rule without internal and external threats during the Directory.
Internally, the Jacobin ideals were taken up mainly by Graco Babeuf, which helped in the political organization of the popular layers. He led in 1796 to Conspiracy of Equals, which tied the members of the Directory and aimed to deepen popular revolutionary reforms, seeking achieve effective equality between men, mainly through the proposal to create a "community of goods of work".
The Conspiracy of Equals was crushed by the Directory, and Babeuf was arrested in May 1796 along with other leaders of the popular revolt. A year later Babeuf was sentenced to death at the guillotine.
Externally, the Directory had to face the neighboring countries, still organized in Absolutist Monarchies, and which saw the French Republic as a threat to the power they held. England, Austria and Prussia formed a new coalition with the aim of containing the French army's military advances on the European continent.
In the continuation of the wars of the revolutionary period, the French army carried out campaigns in the north of the Italy and other parts of Western Europe, as well as fighting in Switzerland, Malta, Egypt and the Syria. But the aims and ideals of the French army had changed. At that time, it was more an army identified with its superiors, mainly the generals, than with the republican civil institutions built after the fall of King Louis XVI.
In this context, the figure of the young general emerged. Napoleon Bonaparte. With a meteoric rise in the French army and identified with republican ideals, Bonaparte became a general at the age of 24. The victorious campaigns carried out mainly in Italy and Egypt ensured Napoleon enormous prestige within the Directory.
Internal instability and external threats made the French bourgeoisie apprehensive. Part of the Directory started to organize a coup d'etat. On November 9, 1799, or on the 18th of Brumaire in the French revolutionary calendar, Napoleon Bonaparte was placed at the head of state power in France. A Consulate was formed to govern the country with three consuls: Sieyès, Roger Ducos and Bonaparte.
With this fact, another period of the French Revolution ended and theNapoleonic era.
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