In spite of these [military] successes, anger against the Directory's misrule intensifies. France is "groaning under the weight of her arbitrary government." The Directory has created an unpopular conscription decree. Everyone knows that the conscripts will go unpaid and ill-clothed while the contractors make money. Once they arrive at the front they will be thrown away in some poorly conceived offensive whose real objective is plunder to prop up the government. The Directory has also decreed a forced loan that amounts to an extortion scheme. The rich employ every dodge including sham bankruptcy, shell companies, and emigration to avoid payment. Everyone else reduces expenses and participates more thoroughly in the underground economy. Consequently, businesses decline and unemployment soars. Bad as are these decrees, worse is the requirement that each commune with a potential for insurrection furnish a list of hostages who will be accountable for the misdeeds of their émigré or royalist relatives. The hostages will be either fined, imprisoned, or deported. It is so transparently open to corruption that it undoes most of the pacification work performed over the past many years. Georges Cadoudal and his men rise again in Brittany. The Vendée, Anjou, and even the heretofore quiet Midi become inflamed. The threat of royalist insurrection grows. Consequently, the public's overweening desire is for change leading to stability. One dedicated royalist who has managed to survive the Terror speaks for most Frenchmen when he explains that he and his friends are prepared to support any government that possesses "[a] sincere desire to restore order in France." Color Illustration: The Conspirators (83K) Bonaparte Takes Control: Coup of Brumaire Back to Table of Contents -- Napoleon #15 Back to Napoleon List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 2000 by Napoleon LLC. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. The full text and graphics from other military history magazines and gaming magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com Order Napoleon magazine direct