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It's my understanding that one of the major problems with the French Directory was its tendency to whirl around back and forth suppressing everyone who wasn't on board with their narrow political vision (which basically amounted to non-ideological self preservation). They support the muscadin gangs and the conservatives, and then turn around and promote the Jacobins once things were getting too monarchistic. Then vice versa.

Now I have a very much layperson's understanding of the French Revolution, but it seems to me ultimately the conservatives and monarchists were the greater political threat. After 9 Thermidor, it wasn't long before the sans-culottes were relatively neutered, and the liberal politicians who remained weren't as big a danger. Did the Directory really have so much to worry about from the left?

Could we perhaps see a Directory where there was a stronger alliance with the left, perhaps heading towards a strong pseudo-democracy with multiple political factions? Or were purges and repression and a total repudiation of constitutional government in practice an inherent feature, rather than a bug, of the Directory? What do you guys think?
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