The Convention on 22 August 1795 approved thenew "Constitution of the Year III". A French plebiscite ratified the document, with about 1,057,000 votes for the constitution and 49,000 against.[161]The results of the voting were announced on 23 September 1795, and the new constitution took effect on 27 September 1795.[161]The new constitution created theDirectoire(English:Directory) with abicameral legislature.The first chamber was called the 'Council of 500' initiating the laws, the second the 'Council of Elders' reviewing and approving or not the passed laws. Each year, one-third of the chambers was to be renewed. The executive power was in the hands of the five members of the fivedirectorsof the Directory with a five-year mandate.[153]The early directors did not much understand the nation they were governing; they especially had an innate inability to see Catholicismas anything else than counter-revolutionary and royalist. Local administrators had a better sense of people's priorities, and one of them wrote to the minister of the interior: "Give backthe crosses, the church bells, the Sundays, and everyone will cry:’vive la République!’"[153]The Directory denounced the arbitrary executions of the Reign of Terror, but itself engaged in large scale illegal repressions, as wellas large-scale massacres of civilians in the Vendee uprising. The economy continued in bad condition, with the poor especially hurt by the high cost of food.State finances were in total disarray; the government could only cover its expenses through the plunder and the tribute of foreign countries. If peace were made, the armies wouldreturn home and the directors would have to face the exasperation of the rank-and-file whohad lost their livelihood, as well as the ambition of generals who could, in a moment, brush them aside.Barrasand Rewbellwere notoriously corrupt themselves and screened corruption in others. The patronage of the directors was ill-bestowed, and the general maladministration heightened their unpopularity.[162]A small French force tried toinvade Britainin February 1797. This contemporary image shows troops landing near Fishguard in Wales. The troops were later forced to surrender.The constitutional party in the legislature desired toleration of thenonjuring clergy, the repeal of the laws against the relatives of theémigrés, and some merciful discrimination towards the émigrés themselves. The directors baffled all such endeavours. On the other hand, the socialist conspiracy ofBabeufwas easily quelled. Little was done to improve the finances,and theassignatscontinued to fall in value untileach note was worth less than the paper it was printed on; debtors easily paid off their debts.[163]A series of financial reforms started by the Directory finally took effect after it fell from power.[citation needed]EvaluationAlthough committed to Republicanism, the Directory distrusted democracy.Historians have seldom praised the Directory; 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. Its achievements were minor.Brown stresses the turn towards dictatorship and the failure of liberal democracy under the Directory, blaming it on,"chronic violence, ambivalent forms of justice, and repeated recourse to heavy-handed repression."General Napoleon and his troops crossing thebridge of Arcolein 1796The election system was complex and designed to insulate the government from grass roots democracy. The parliament consisted of two houses: theConseil des Cinq-Cents(Council of the Five Hundred) with 500 representatives, and theConseil des Anciens(Council of Elders) with 250 senators. Executive power went to five"directors," named annually by theConseil des Anciensfrom a list submitted by theConseil desCinq-Cents. Theuniversal male suffrageof 1793 was replaced by limited suffrage based onproperty. The voters had only a limited choice because the electoral rules required two-thirds of the seats go to members of the old Convention, no matter how few popular votes they received.Citizens of the war-weary nation wanted stability, peace, and an end to conditions that attimes bordered on chaos. Nevertheless, those onthe right who wished to restore the monarchy by puttingLouis XVIII on the throne, and those on the left who would have renewed the Reign of Terror, tried but failed to overthrow the Directory. The earlier atrocities had made confidence or goodwill between parties impossible.The Directory régime met opposition from Jacobins on the left and royalists on the right (the latter were secretly subsidised by the British government). The army suppressed riots and counter-revolutionary activities. In this way the army and in particular Napoleon gained total power.[citation needed]Coups d'étatParliamentary elections in the spring of 1797, for one-third of the seats in Parliament, resulted in considerable gains for the royalists,who seemed poised to take control of the Directory in the next elections. This frightened the republican directors and they reacted, in theCoup of 18 Fructidor V (4 September 1797), by purging all the winners banishing 57 leaders to certain death in Guiana, removing two supposedly pro-royalist directors, and closing 42 newspapers.The new, 'corrected' government, still strongly convinced that Catholicism and royalism were equally dangerous to the Republic, started a fresh campaign to promote theRepublican calendar(officially introduced in 1792), with itsten-day week, and tried to hallow the tenth day,décadi, as substitute for theChristian Sunday. Not only citizens opposed and even mocked such decrees, also local government officials refused to enforce such laws.Napoléon Bonapartein thecoup d'étatof 18 Brumaire VIII(9 November 1799).France wasstill waging wars, in1798 in Egypt, Switzerland, Rome, Ireland, Belgium and againstthe U.S.A., in1799 in Baden-Württemberg. When the elections of 1798 were again carried by the opposition, the Directory used the army to imprison and exile the opposition leaders and close their newspapers.Increasingly it depended on the Army in foreignand domestic affairs, as well as finance.In 1799, when the French armies abroad experienced some setbacks, the newly chosen director Sieyes considered a new overhaul necessary for the Directory's form of governmentbecause in his opinion it needed a stronger executive. Together with successful general Napoleon Bonapartewho had just returned to France, Sieyes began preparing anothercoup d'état, whichtook place on 9–10 November 1799 (18–19 Brumaire VIII), replacing the five directors now with three "consuls": Napoleon, Sieyes, and Roger Ducos.That coup some historians consider the closing of the specifically republican phase of the French Revolution.