These two expedients, adopted by the Directory in the summer of 1799, were temporary measures adopted to stem the tide of invasion and to crush revolts; but they were regarded as signs of a permanently terrorist policy, and their removal greatly strengthened the new consular rule.

The blunder of nearly all the revolutionary governments had been in continuing severe laws after the need for them had ceased to be pressing.
Bonaparte, with infinite tact, discerned this truth, and, as will shortly appear, set himself to found his government on the support of that vast neutral mass which was neither royalist nor Jacobin, which hated the severities of the reds no less than the abuses of the _ancien regime_.
While Bonaparte was conciliating the many, Sieyes was striving to body forth the constitution which for many years had been nebulously floating in his brain.

The function of the Socratic [Greek: maieutaes] was discharged by Boulay de la Meurthe, who with difficulty reduced those ideas to definite shape.

The new constitution was based on the principle: "Confidence comes from below, power from above." This meant that the people, that is, all adult males, were admitted only to the preliminary stages of election of deputies, while the final act of selection was to be made by higher grades or powers.

The "confidence" required of the people was to be shown not only towards their nominees, but towards those who were charged with the final and most important act of selection.