Frenchmen, the Executive Directory has just been installed.
         Resolved to maintain liberty or to perish, it is determined to consolidate the Republic and to give all dispatch and vigor to the Constitution.
         Republicans, rely upon it, its destiny will never be separated from yours; inflexible justice and the strictest observance of laws will be its rule. To wage an active war on royalism, to revive patriotism, to repress all factions vigorously, to destroy all party spirit, to annihilate every desire for vengeance, to establish concord, to restore peace, to regenerate morals, to reopen the sources of production, to revive commerce and industry, to stifle speculation, to revivify the arts and sciences, to re-establish plenty and the public credit, to reinstate social order in place of the chaos which is inseparable from revolutions, finally, to obtain for the French Republic the happiness and glory which it awaits—such is the task of your legislators and of the Executive Directory….
         Wise laws, promptly and energetically enforced, will soon cause us to forget our prolonged sufferings.
         But so many evils cannot be compensated for, so much good accomplished in a day. The French people are just and loyal; they will perceive that… we need time, calm, patience, and confidence proportionate to the efforts we have to make. Such confidence will not be betrayed if the people no longer allow themselves to be won over to the perfidious suggestions of royalists who are resuming their plots, of fanatics who are ceaselessly inflaming opinions, and of public leeches who are always taking advantage of our miseries.
         It will not be betrayed if the people do not attribute to the new authorities the disorders occasioned by six years if revolution, which can be expiated only with time; it will not be betrayed if the people recall that, for more than three years, time the enemies of the Republic…have aroused tempers and occasioned disturbances, …such agitations have served only to increase discredit, and to retard production and plenty, which only order and public tranquility can produce.
         Frenchmen, you will not shackle a newborn government…;but you will support with wisdom the ever active efforts and the imperturbable progress of the Executive Directory towards the prompt establishment of public happiness; and soon, with the glorious title of Republicans, you will irrevocably assure national peace and prosperity.