After Babuph's execution, after conservative power searched in the assembly, Democrats rallied to the Directory's defense. But the Directory then turned against the left, interfering in an overturning elections in 1798 with the Florialcu. Then came the coup of prairie al with a democratic backed legislature, ousting two directors,. All leading up of course to 18 Brumair of 1799, when soldiers installed three consuls to rule the country. Napoleon Bonaparte seized total control and then formally abolished the Republic in 1804.
Featuring Laura Mason on her book The Last Revolutionaries: The Conspiracy Trial of Gracchus Babeuf and the Equals. Mason discusses Babeuf's call to abolish property, his radically egalitarian conspiracy against the Directory government, and the end of the French Revolution. How a centrist government turned its back on popular democracy, presided over growing inequality and working-class poverty, and abetted the rise of the reactionary right that would ultimately overthrow it.
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