John Fredrick Parker
Donor
Peter McPhee calls the Coup of 18 Fructidor (1797) a turning point in the French Revolution when the center leadership, those rejecting both royalism and "anarchism", abandoned liberal constitutionalism* in favor of "liberal authoritarianism".
With no PoDs prior to October 1795, is it possible to avoid this transition? Not just "can the coup be avoided", but can the slide toward authoritarian dictatorship be stopped before it starts? Could the royalist electoral victories have been avoided? Or conversely, was the threat of th 1797 results to the republic overblown; in which case, could the coup itself have been stopped and constitutionalism as under the Directory preserved? Could the French political establishment have learned to incorporate political factions, like the Neo-Jacobins, in a sustainable way? And if this is broadly possible, what would be the effects (aside from Napoleon not coming to power)?
*before anyone says it, being constitutional isn't equvalent to being democratic, so issues of limited suffrage of the two-thirds rule aren't germaine here
With no PoDs prior to October 1795, is it possible to avoid this transition? Not just "can the coup be avoided", but can the slide toward authoritarian dictatorship be stopped before it starts? Could the royalist electoral victories have been avoided? Or conversely, was the threat of th 1797 results to the republic overblown; in which case, could the coup itself have been stopped and constitutionalism as under the Directory preserved? Could the French political establishment have learned to incorporate political factions, like the Neo-Jacobins, in a sustainable way? And if this is broadly possible, what would be the effects (aside from Napoleon not coming to power)?
*before anyone says it, being constitutional isn't equvalent to being democratic, so issues of limited suffrage of the two-thirds rule aren't germaine here
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