The mutilated Councils forthwith annulled the late elections in forty-nine Departments, and passed severe laws against orthodox priests and the unpardoned _emigres_ who had ventured to return to France.

The Directory was also intrusted with complete power to suppress newspapers, to close political clubs, and to declare any commune in a state of siege.

Its functions were now wellnigh as extensive and absolute as those of the Committee of Public Safety, its powers being limited only by the incompetence of the individual Directors and by their paralyzing consciousness that they ruled only by favour of the army.

They had taken the sword to solve a political problem: two years later they were to fall by that sword.[86] Augereau fully expected that he would be one of the two Directors who were elected in place of Carnot and Barthelemy; but the Councils had no higher opinion of his civic capacity than Bonaparte had formed; and, to his great disgust, Merlin of Douai and Francois of Neufchatel were chosen.

The last scenes of the _coup d'etat_ centred around the transportation of the condemned deputies.