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The Directory was the government of France during the penultimate stage of the French Revolution. Administered by a collective leadership of five directors, it operated following the Committee of Public Safety and preceding the Consulate. It lasted from 2 November 1795 until 10 November 1799, a period commonly known as the "Directory era." It was overthrown by Napoleon. The Directory at first had some success in foreign policy, especially after Napoleon's conquests in Italy. It annexed Belgium and the left (western) bank of the Rhine River, and set up satellite regimes in Switzerland, the Netherlands, and most of Italy. The conquered lands were forced to provide huge subsidies to the French treasury, which otherwise was bankrupt. On the domestic front however, conditions went from bad to worse and the Directory responded with repression. The period was a time of economic depression in France, with famines and widespread distress following the crop failure of 1795. Inflation was raging as the paper money was worth less than 1% of its face value. There was a major civil war in the Vendée region. The Army crushed it by massacring thousands of civilians, often by drowning. The government suppressed its critics, their clubs and their newspapers. It executed Gracchus Babeuf, the chief spokesman for the poor. The War of the First Coalition against Britain and its allies dragged on at great expense, and with an unpopular conscription (draft) of young men. In 1799 the enemies of France scored a series of major victories, pushing the French back to their borders. The bright spot seemingly was Napoleon's highly successful campaigns, but when he invaded Egypt, the British sank his fleet and his army became trapped, while the armies still in Europe suffered a series of defeats in 1799. The Directory had very little popular or elite support left. Napoleon returned to Paris and overthrew the Directory on November 9, 1799.〔Soboul (1973) pp 477-548〕 Historians have generally been negative about the Directory. Palmer says: :The Directory became a kind of ineffective dictatorship. It repudiated most of the assignats (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 (who would not swear allegiance to the government ).〔R.R. Palmer and Joel Colton, ''A History of the Modern World (4th edition 1971) p 412〕 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. Blum et al. argue, "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."〔Jerome Blum, Rondo Cameron, and Thomas G. Barnes. ''The European World - A History'' (2nd ed. 1970) p 488〕 Overall its achievements were minor, though it did establish administrative procedures and financial reforms that worked out well when Napoleon started using them.〔Hunt, Lansky and Hanson, (1979) p 735〕〔Martyn Lyons, ''France under the Directory'' (1975), pp. 159-73〕 Brown stresses the turn toward dictatorship and the failure of liberal democracy under the Directory, blaming it for, "chronic violence, ambivalent forms of justice, and repeated recourse to heavy-handed repression." Directoire style refers to the Neoclassical styles in architecture, the decorative arts and high society fashions that flourished during the period. ==Origins== (詳細は1794 during the Revolution, the new French Republic was convulsed in civil and foreign wars. On 9 Thermidor Year II (27 July 1794), deputies in the National Convention delivered a counterstrike, arresting and executing Robespierre along with Louis Antoine de Saint-Just, Georges Couthon, and many others. Their removal from power, and the subsequent divergence of the Revolution's course, is known historically as the Thermidorian Reaction.〔Leo Gershoy, ''The French Revolution and Napoleon'' (2nd ed 1964) pp 293-97〕 The demand for change was so great, it necessitated a reformation of the entire system of government. The original Constitution of Year I, now permanently discredited by its origin among Jacobins, was quickly replaced by a new document, the Constitution of Year III. This dissolved the National Convention and established a unique new governmental system for France – a bicameral legislature led by a five-member ''Directoire executif''.〔J. F,. Bosher, ''The French revolution'' (1988) pp 226-30〕〔Gershoy, ''The French Revolution and Napoleon'' (1964) pp 303-8〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「French Directory」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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