The government then chose between the two candidates elected, arbitrarily and always with barefaced partiality; and again, if but one candidate was elected, and that one an adversary, his election was invalidated.

In sum, for nine years, the legislative body, imposed on the nation by a faction, was scarcely more legitimate than the executive power, another usurper, and which, later on, filled up or purged its ranks.

Any remedy for this defect in the electoral machine was impossible; it was due to its internal structure, to the very quality of its materials.

At this date, even under an impartial and strong government, the machine could not have answered its purpose, that of deriving from the nation a body of sober-minded and respected delegates, providing France with a parliament capable of playing its own part, or any part whatever, in the conduct of public business.
For, suppose * that the new governors show uncommon loyalty, energy, and vigilance, remarkable political abnegation and administrative omnipresence, * that the factions are contained without suppression of free speech, * the central powers neutral yet active, * no official candidature, * no pressure from above, * no constraint from below, * the police-commissioners respectful and gendarmes protecting the entrance to every electoral assembly, * all proceedings regular, no disturbance inside, voting perfectly free, the electors numerous, five or six millions of Frenchmen gathered at the polls, and guess what choice they will make.
After Fructidor, there is a renewal of religious persecution and of excessive civil oppression; the brutality and unworthiness of the rulers have doubled and diffused hatred against the men and the ideas of the Revolution .-- In Belgium, recently annexed, the regular and secular clergy had just been proscribed in a mass,[2112] and a great rural insurrection had broken out.

The uprising had spread from the Waes country and the ancient seignory of Malines, around Louvain as far as Tirlemont, and afterward to Brussels, to Campine, to South Brabant, to Flanders, to Luxembourg, in the Ardennes, and even to the frontiers of Liege; many villages had to be burned, and many of their inhabitants killed, and the survivors keep this in mind.