126] 
spirited and incessant efforts of these 
to resist their tyranny. Conseious 
that these opponents were viewed 
by the nation as its only true re. 
presentatives, and themselves as in- 
truders, they laboured to asperse 
them as faise to the republican.cause, 
and eleéted for that reason by its 
enemies ; but the injurious epithets 
they bestowed upon the moderate 
party, being proofless, fell to the 
ground, while the charge of des. 
potism and usurpation were retorted 
vpon them with undeniable pro- 
priety. 
Nor were the moderates defi. 
cient in counteraGing their enenmes 
by the same methods that were used 
by these to effect their purposes. 
The crowds that resorted to the 
galleries, consisted usually of those 
classes remarkable for their ferocity 
and violence. They were naturally 
the partisans of the terrorists, aad 
seldom failed to support them by 
clamours and vociferations levelled 
at their oppo-ers. The direttory, 
consulting its own dignity, and 
strongly abetted as well as applaud. 
ed by the moderate party, deprived 
their antagonists of these long-tried 
and staunch auxiliarjes, by reducing 
the galleries for the admission of 
speftators to a space not containing 
more than three hundred. 
Experience also soon proved the 
utility of dividing the legislature 
into separate and independent dbo- 
dies. The upper house, or council 
of elders, consisting of two hundred 
and fifty members, soon conceived 
ideas of their importance, that Ied 
them to act with a reserve and de. 
liberation suitable to the superiority 
assigned to them. The lower house, 
er council of five hundred, enter- 
tained so just a sense of their dis. 
cretion, that at the very outset, as 
v 
ANNUAL REGISTER, 1795. 
it were, of the new constitution, 
not daring to crust them witha fair 
and reasonable choice of persons 
for the directory ; and, being deter- 
Mined to have that option them- 
selves, they contrived, by a remark. 
able artifice, to confine them to the 
choice of five out of six. The 
method of electing the direttory, 
ag prescribed by the constitution, 
was thateach member of the lower 
house should give in the names of 
Rfty persons ; out of the numbers 
thus named, those fifty who had, on 
scrutiny, most voters, were notified 
by a written list te the council of 
ancients ; who, out of these fifty, 
nominated, by electien, the five di, 
rectors. The majority in the lower 
house, influenced by theiz rulers, 
gave in the names of six persons 
whom these were desirous to pro. 
mote, adding to them forty-four 
ether names of persons so insignifi, 
cant end obscure, that the council 
of ancients could not stoap to pay 
them attention, and were in fact 
restrained to ithe choice of six; but 
this artifice, mean as it was, evinced 
the opinion of the council of five 
hundred, and that they considered 
the council of ancients as too re. 
gardful of their own consequence 
to follow incensiderately the im. 
pulse of the lower house, and to 
become obsequiously the passive Ine 
struments of any party. 
This was farther confirmed by 
the rejeftion of a decree, passed in 
the council of five hundred, by 
witich the parents of emigrants 
were, during the life of these, to 
divide their property with the na- 
tion, The injusticeand inhumanity 
of this decree struck so forcibly the 
house of elders, that they refused 
their assent, to the great satisfaQion 
not only of the pcrsons eener 
at 
