<P> Despite wars and social turmoil, the population of France continued to grow during the Directory . It was 27,800,000 in 1796, before the Directory, and had grown to 27,900,000 by 1801 . Annual population growth had dropped from 16 percent in 1785, before the Revolution, to zero in 1790; but it then rebounded to 36 percent in 1795, then down to 12 percent in 1800 . Part of the drop in birthrate during the Directory is attributed to the simplification of divorce, and the change in inheritance laws, which granted equal shares to all descendants . The number of young men killed in the wars during the Directory numbered 235,000 between 1795 and 1799 . The high birth rate before the Revolution--together with conscription from conquered and allied states--allowed Napoleon to fill the ranks of his Grande Armée during the Empire between 1804 and 1815 . </P> <P> By the time of the Directory, French society had been dramatically restructured . Nobles and clergy, the two classes which had held most of the power before the Revolution, had disappeared . An estimated one percent of the population, mostly nobles and priests, but also many members of the upper middle class who had supported the monarchy, had emigrated . The number was even higher in border regions, such as Bas - Rhin, where 4.5 percent of the population had left . </P> <P> Under the Directory the middle and upper classes took a dominant position in Paris society, replacing the nobility . Enormous fortunes were made, often by providing supplies to the army or by speculation on real estate . Some parts of the middle and upper classes suffered: the abolition of the old professional guilds of lawyers and doctors brought the ruin of many members, who faced competition from anyone who wanted to use those titles . The merchants and shipowners in Bordeaux, Nantes, Marseille and other ports were ruined by the British naval blockade . Bankers took on a more prominent role, when investment was scarce . </P> <P> Two new groups gained importance during the Directory . The number of government officials of all levels increased dramatically . The writer Louis - Sébastien Mercier in his Paris pendant la Révolution (1789--1798), ou Le nouveau Paris, published in 1800, wrote: "There is no one who has not complained of the insolence, or the ignorance, of the multitude of government officials employed in the bureaus to sharpen their pens and to obstruct the course of affairs . New has the bureaucracy been carried to a point so so exaggerated, so costly, to exhausting ." </P>

What was the role of the directory in the french revolution