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Taine, Hippolyte, 1828-1893

"The French Revolution - Volume 3"

The Five Hundred, by
adroitly preparing the lists, impose their candidates on the Ancients,
selecting the five names beforehand: Barras, La R?velli?re de L?peaux,
Reubell, Letourneur and Si?y?s, and then, on Si?y?s refusing, Carnot.
All of them are regicides and, under this terrible qualification,
bound at the risk of their heads, to maintain the regicide faction in
power. - Naturally the Directory chooses its agents from among their
own people,[29] their ministers and the employees of their
departments, ambassadors and consuls, officers of all ranks,
collectors of taxes direct and indirect, administrators of the
national domains, commissioners of civil and Criminal courts, and the
commissioners of the departmental and municipal administrations.
Again, having the right to suspend and dismiss all elected
administrative bodies, it exercises this right. If the local
authorities of any town, canton, or department seem to be anti-
Jacobin, it sets them aside and, either on its own authority, or with
the assent of the Legislative Corps, replaces them with Jacobins on
the spot.[30] In other respects, the Convention has done its best to
relieve its clients of their principal adversaries and most popular
rivals.


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