One of the few characteristics that remained constant throughout the revolution was that it was a reactionary force. The actions of the revolutionaries, although guided by the ideals and morals of building a better France, were primarily motivated by a mixture of fear and rage towards certain groups perceived as having an advantage over the masses. The events of the French Revolution are closely linked to each other, the actions of a previous government causing the next to compensate in the opposite direction. This tendency to react to the present, both when groups were fighting for power and when they were trying to maintain it, lacked the foresight necessary to establish lasting stability in the French nation. This view of the nature of the French Revolution also illuminates why it is not possible to form a coherent description of the French Revolution as a whole. Instead, it is necessary to break down the Revolution into periods and see the main theme of each. The constitutional monarchy of the early French Revolution was an entirely different entity from that of the Directory during the slow decline of the Revolution, not to mention the quasi-police state that existed during the Terror. Some revolutionaries, like