The correct option is "They went to war with France because they feared the spread of revolutionary ideas of equality."
The directory was the penultimate form of government adopted by the First French Republic, during the French Revolution. Established by the Constitution of Year III that approved the Thermidorian Convention, it began on October 26, 1795, and ended with the coup d'etat of the 18th Brumaire of Year VIII (November 9, 1799) that the Consulate established. After the Terror period imposed by the most extreme wing of the Jacobins, there was a return to more moderate positions.