To consolidate the French people after six years of radical
revolutionary upheavals required hard and honest labor on the part of
men of distinct genius. Yet the Directors were, almost without
exception, men of mediocre talents, [Footnote: Carnot, upright and
sincere, and the only member of first-rate ability, was forced out of
the Directory in 1797.] who practiced bribery and corruption with
unblushing effrontery. They preferred their personal gain to the
welfare of the state.
[Sidenote: Political and Social Dissensions]
The period of the Directory was a time of plots and intrigues. The
royalists who were elected in large numbers to the Assemblies were
restrained from subverting the constitution only by illegal force and
violence on the part of the Directors. On the other hand, the
extremists in Paris found a warm-hearted leader in a certain Babeuf
(1760-1797), who declared that the Revolution had been directed
primarily to the advantage of the bourgeoisie, that the proletarians,
despite their toil and suffering and bloodshed, were still just as
poorly off as ever, and that their only salvation lay in a compulsory
equalization of wealth and the abolition of poverty.
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