The ravings of the French Convention would soon have ended, had not a
great organizer now appeared. On 17th August 1793 Carnot entered the
Committee of Public Safety, and thenceforth wielded its limitless powers
for purposes of national defence. He was an officer of engineers, and
had eagerly studied the principles of strategy. Throwing himself with
ardour into the Revolution, he became a member of the National Assembly,
and now was charged with the supervision of the War Department. At the
War Committee he had the help of officers scarcely less able. Among them
Mallet du Pan, in an interesting survey of French administrators, names
D'Arcon as largely contributing to the French triumphs at Dunkirk and
Maubeuge. He calls him a soul on fire and full of resource.[227] But the
brain and will of this Committee was Carnot. His application to work for
some twelve or fourteen hours a day, his hold on masses of details, and
his burning patriotism, enabled him to inflame, control, and energize
Frenchmen until they became a nation in arms. Moreover, Carnot had the
invaluable gift of selecting the best commanders. True, the Frenchman
was not hampered by a monarch who regarded the army as his own, nor by
clogging claims of seniority. The "organizer of victory" had before him
a clear field and no favour.

The most urgent danger for the Republic soon proved to be not in
Flanders, but in Brittany and la Vendee. There _la petite noblesse_ and
the peasantry still lived on friendly terms. They were alike shocked by
the expulsion of the orthodox priests and the murder of the King.
Summoned by the Republic to arms in the spring of 1793, they rushed to
arms against her. In la Vendee, the densely wooded district south of
the lower Loire, everything favoured the defence. The hardy peasants
were ably led by that born leader of men, the chivalrous Marquis de
Larochejaquelein, who had inspired the men of his neighbourhood with the
words: "If I advance, follow me; if I retreat, slay me; if I fall,
avenge me." With him was his cousin, Lescure, not less brave, but of a
cooler and more calculating temper. The ardently Catholic peasantry of
the west furnished as leaders a carter, Cathelineau, of rare ability and
generosity of character, and Stofflet, a gamekeeper, of stern and
vindictive stamp. Nerved by fanatical hatred against the atheists and
regicides of Paris, these levies of the west proved more than a match
for all the National Guards, whole co