The Directory’s reaction taught French crowds that the bourgeoisie had betrayed the Revolution

Evidence

By 1794, that is Year II of the French republic, the most radical of the several bourgeois-dominated governments established in Paris had been overthrown and its leading citizens (most prominently Robespierre) had been executed, exiled, or forced to flee to the countryside and beyond. The reaction that followed, under the Directory, had abolished the radical legislation and the egalitarian policies of a directed economy decreed the year before. The limitations on prices (the maximum), the taxation of the wealthy classes, national assistance to the poor, free and compulsory education, the confiscation and distribution to the poor of emigre property, were either repealed or discontinued in practice. As had been the case on several previous occasions since the aristocracy’s power had been challenged, the revolutionary crowds of France’s towns and cities, and the peasants in the countryside began to suspect that the Revolution was being betrayed. This time the traitors were the reactionary bourgeoisie, those members of the class whose wealth and power the Revolution had already secured. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 306

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Connects to ‘On Sacrifice’ and the general theme of how popular movements read elite betrayal — the moment the people’s death-bet with the revolution is seen as broken.