Recent Memoirs of the French Directory

Abstract

STUDENTS of modern history, and more particularly students of the modern history of France, have been for years anxiously awaiting the publication of the memoirs of the two men who played the most conspicuous part in the phase of revolutionary history which lies between the government of the National Convention and the restoration of order in France during the Consulate. The period of the Directory has hitherto been strangely neglected by historians. Although histories of the French Revolution and histories of the government of Napoleon abound, the only reputable work devoted to a narrative of the history of France during the government of the Executive Directory is the old-fashioned and commonplace Histoire dii Dir-ectoire by M. de Barante. This neglect is in part due to the fact that writers upon the history of the French Revolution seem to have exhausted their energy by the time they have told the tale of the Reign of Terror, and their accounts of the period of the Directory, and even of the period of the Thermidorian government which succeeded the fall of Robespierre and preceded the election of the first Directors, generally read like spiritless and tiresome sequels to their earlier chapters. This attitude is natural enough. The period of the Directory, like the period of