e for advancement. Moreau, Macdonald, Jourdan, Bernadotte,
Kleber, Mortier, Ney, Pichegru, Desaix, Berthier, Augereau, and
Bonaparte himself,--each one of these was the product of Carnot's
system. He was the creator of the armies which for a time made all
Europe tributary to France.

Throughout an epoch which laid bare the meanness of most natures, his
character was unsmirched. He began life under the ancient regime by
writing and publishing a eulogy on Vauban, who had been disgraced for
his plain speaking to Louis XIV. When called to a share in the
government he was the advocate of a strong nationality, of a just
administration within, and of a fearless front to the world. While
minister of war he on one occasion actually left his post and hastened
to Maubeuge, where defeat was threatening Jourdan, devised and put
into operation a new plan, led in person the victorious assault, and
then returned to Paris to inspire the country and the army with news
of the victory; all this he did as if it were commonplace duty,
without advertising himself by parade or ceremony. Even Robespierre
had trembled before his biting irony and yet dared not, as he wished,
include him among his victims. After the events of Thermidor, when it
was proposed to execute all those who had authorized the bloody deeds
of the Terror, excepting Carnot, he prevented the sweeping measure by
standing in his place to say that he too had acted with the rest, had
held like them the conviction that the country could not otherwise be
saved, and that therefore he must share their fate.

In the milder light of the new constitution the dark blot on his
record thus frankly confessed grew less repulsive as the continued
dignity and sincerity of his nature asserted themselves in a tolerance
which he believed to be as needful now as ruthless severity once had
been. For a year the glory of French arms had been eclipsed: his
dominant idea was first to restore their splendor, then to make peace
with honor and give the new life of his country an opportunity for
expansion in a mild and firm administration of the new laws. If he had
been dictator in the crisis, no doubt his plan, arduous as was the
task, might have been realized; but, with Letourneur in a minority of
two, against an unprincipled adventurer leading two bigots, it was
impossible to secure the executive unity necessary for success.

At the opening of the year 1796, therefore, the situation of France
was quit