Retreat from the ‘welfare state’, c. 1795–c. 1800.

The relative lack of concern which the Revolutionary Government had shown towards hospitals had sprung from, and was compensated by, a strong and positive commitment to alternative forms of relief. Its immediate successors in the Thermidorean period and then under the Directory (4 Brumaire Year IV to 19 Brumaire Year VIII, 26 October 1795 to 10 November 1799) not only dispelled any lingering ambitions concerning the introduction of a ‘welfare state’ but also displayed an insouciance towards hospitals which bordered on wilful and cruel neglect. The strain which this placed on surviving poor-relief institutions – in the Montpellier region as in most other parts of France – was intensified by the general deterioration in social and economic conditions in the mid and late 1790s. The trade slump caused by the war, the crisis in most local branches of manufacturing, monetary depreciation, high prices and bread shortages, combined with a chronic lack of political stability and administrative authority, produced a rise in the levels of demand for assistance with which crisis-racked poor-relief institutions could hardly hope to cope. The de-nationalisation of hospital property by the law of 4 Brumaire Year IV (26 October 1795) – in essence the revocation of the notorious law of 23 Messidor Year II – was the most important single measure concerning poor relief in this period and showed clearly – and ominously – the general attitude of the government to the provision of relief. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]