CHAP. character contributed more than any other circumstance to the early success of the revolutionary wars. Austere XIII. 1793. 50. Carnot, war minister. His character. in character, unbending in disposition, republican in prin- certainty, was erroneous. Invincible tenacity of his opinions, and great vigour During the peace which followed the conclusion of the American War, he followed out with ardour his mechanical researches, and in 1786 published an essay on machines, which so much added to his reputation, that he was offered by Prince Henry of Prussia, who had witnessed his crowning at Dijon, advancement in the Prussian service, which he had patriotic spirit enough to decline. He had too much penetration not to see that the time was rapidly approaching when the barriers of rank would be thrown down in his own country, and the career of talent be open to all. Soon after, he married the daughter of a rich merchant at St Omer, and this procured for him an entrance into the Legislative Assembly, as deputy for the department of the Pas de Calais, in 1791. An ardent admirer of the institutions of antiquity, enamoured of the heroes of Plutarch, living much with the mighty dead, hardly at all with the living little, he dreamt of the Sabine farm and the virtues of Fabricius amidst the corruptions of Paris, and soon gave decisive proof that he was resolved to follow out his principles in the government and regeneration of France. His first step in the Assembly was a motion for a decree against Calonne, the Viscount Mirabeau, and the German princes, who were preparing, under the Prince of Condé, to make war upon France-a circumstance which not unnaturally led to the remark, that the first use he had made of power was to assail the benefactor whose crowning of him at Dijon had first opened to him the path of distinction. His subsequent career demonstrated at once the violence, austerity, and rigidity of his principles. He was soon made a member of the military committee in the Assembly, the chief object of which was to censure and depreciate the war measures of government-a duty which he executed with equal zeal and ability. Soon after, he brought forward a motion for destroying all citadels of fortified towns, upon the ground that it gave government the means of bombarding the streets, and overawing the inhabitants. He declaimed afterwards, with force and eloquence, against the murderers of General Dillon, who had fallen the victim of a military mutiny; but he warmly supported the disbanding of the constitutional guard of Louis XVI., which necessarily led to the surrender of that monarch to civil assassins. Subsequently he strongly enforced, on the 10th August, the decree for the dethronement of Louis, and CHAP. XIII. 1793. his colleagues, to whom the interior department more immediately belonged; that such was the pressure on him that he would have signed a warrant for his own execution; and that he saved more lives by his entreaties, than his colleagues destroyed by their severity. Still, giving full weight to this defence, and admitting that a patriot contending for the independence of his country against foreign enemies, and a minister jointly intrusted with others with the duties of government, is often obliged to concur in many measures of which he individually disapproves1-still, when we advert to the dreadful career Carnot's of the Committee of Public Salvation, of which he was an 230. active member, it is impossible to consider this apology took such a lead on that occasion, that he was appointed a member of the committee which, on the overthrow of the crown, assumed the supreme direction of affairs. The duty assigned to Carnot on that occasion was to organise and reduce to obedience the army of the Rhine; and, by the vigour and severity of his proceedings, he brought that important body to range itself under the banners of the revolutionary government at Paris. Next he set off to the Pyrenees, and accomplished the same result with the troops there, as well as put them in a situation to open the campaign against the Spanish forces. In the Convention, he was again elected deputy for the Pas de Calais. In the trial of Louis he voted for his death, observing-" In my opinion, justice and policy demand his death, but never did duty so weigh upon my heart." Subsequently he prepared several reports, which were eagerly adopted by the legislature, on the necessity of incorporating Flanders and other conquests with the Republic, and was one of the first who, disregarding the declarations against foreign conquest so often made by the Constituent Assembly, openly declared that nature had assigned the Rhine, the Alps, and the Pyrenees, as the natural limits of the French territory, and that no peace should be concluded which did not secure them to the Great Nation. His appointment as a member of the Committee of Public Salvation in August 1793, gave him too fair an opportunity of putting his principles into practice; and thenceforward his biography forms part of the history of France. Carnot published several able works on scientific subjects; but his literary reputation rests chiefly on his celebrated theory for the defence of strong places, in which, in opposition to Vauban, he strenuously maintains that the means of defence in fortified towns may be made equal or superior to those of attack, so that they could never be taken. His plan for attaining this object rests on three bases:-1st, That the duty of defending the stronghold to the last extremity should, by military law, be held to attach to the governor and whole garrison. 2d, That the scarps and counterscarps should not, as heretofore, be perpendicular, or nearly so, and built of masonry, but of turf, inclined, that of the scarp at an angle of 45 degrees, that of the counterscarp at a much greater one, so as to admit of sorties being made over it from any part of the ditch, and that the wall on which reliance was to be placed should be built at the Memoirs, CHAP. as altogether satisfactory; and most certainly Carnot's memory will never be rescued from the bloody stain which 1793. remains affixed to all the members of that relentless 51. ter as a government. He was the creator of the new military art in France, His charac- which Dumourier was only permitted to sketch, and statesman. Napoleon brought to perfection. Simple in his manners, unostentatious in his habits, incorruptible in his inclinations, though stern and relentless in his principles, he was alike superior to the love of wealth, the weakness of inferior, and the voice of ambition, the infirmity of noble minds. When called to the post of danger by the voice of his country, he never declined the peril: disdaining bottom of the ditch, and in its middle, which was to be dry, and loopholed for musketry. 3d, That a large number of howitzers and thirteen-inch mortars in casements, charged with four-ounce balls, should be constantly in readiness to open a concentric fire upon any enemy who should attempt to run the sap up to the top of the counterscarp, thus making a vertical fire the basis rather than an accessary to the defence. And he demonstrated, by the calculation of chances, that such a number of these would take effect as to prove fatal to any attacking force, and the larger the more certainly. There was, unquestionably, great originality and merit in these conceptions; but Sir Howard Douglas, to whose genius and science British gunnery owes so much, has proved, both on theoretical principles and from actual experiments-1st, That ricochet shot, levelled over the summit of the counterscarp, will, by the rebound, in three or four hours beat down the strongest wall of that description which can be constructed in the bottom of the ditch. 2d, That the wall, when so battered, will first nod, and at last fall outwards, so as to uncover the defending force, and afford rough solid footing for the assailants to rush over. 3d, That though the balls thrown into the air, at an angle of 45 degrees, will ascend with great velocity, yet, from the effect of the resistance of the air, they will descend with little more momentum than that resulting from their own weight, and could not be relied on as adequate to destroy or retard an enterprising enemy. Still there can be no doubt that Carnot's was a much greater step in the science of defence than had been made since the days of Vauban, and possibly may one day make the means of resistance equal to those of attack. In particular, it deserves consideration, whether, by making the balls heavier, as six or eight ounces, they might not be rendered as destructive to the besiegers as Carnot supposes. It is said that, in an experiment lately made in India with balls of eight ounces, it was fully demonstrated that this is the case. It is not a little remarkable that Carnot's scientific calculations, perfectly accurate if there was no atmosphere, proved erroneous from not taking into account the resistance of the air; just as his political speculations proved so destructive from not taking into account the resistance or impulse of human wickedness.-See Mémoires sur CARNOT, i. 124; Biographie Universelle, Supplément, lx. 181, 183; CARNOT, Sur la Defense des Places Fortifiées, Paris, 1812; SIR HOWARD DOUGLAS'S Reply, London, 1815; and JONES's Sieges, ii. 164, 167. XIII. 1793. 1 Thib. i. 37. 6. organised victory." 52. "That nothing was Carnot's to court Napoleon in the plenitude of his power, and alone voting against his assumption of the Imperial crown, he fled to his assistance in the hour of distress, and tendered the aid to a falling, which he had refused to a conquering monarch. Intrusted with the dictatorship of the armies, he justified his country's choice by victory; superior even to the triumphs he had won, he resigned with pleasure the possession of power, to exercise his understanding in the abstract sciences, or renovate his heart by the impressions of country life. Almost alone of the illustrious men of his age, his character-if his fatal connexion with the Committee of Public Salvation could be forgotten-has emerged comparatively untainted from the revolutionary ordeal; and history has to record, with the pride due to real greatness, that, after having wielded Carnot, 255. irresistible force, and withstood unfettered power, he died Dum. iv. 5, poor and unbefriended in a foreign land.1 "Carnot," said Napoleon, "has It was the maxim of this great man, so easy as to find excellent officers in all ranks, if they for conductwere only chosen according to their capacity and their ing the war. courage. For this reason, he took the utmost pains to make himself acquainted with their names and character; and such was the extent of his information, that it was rare for a soldier of merit to escape him, even though only a simple private. He deemed it impossible that an army, commanded by officers chosen exclusively from a limited class of society, could long maintain a contest with one led by those chosen with discernment from the inferior ranks. Such commanders as Turenne and Condé seemed too rare to be calculated upon with any degree of certainty from a privileged class; while the mine of talent which lay hid in the lower stages of society, presented inexhaustible resources."2 This principle, being founded on the eternal Carnot, laws of nature, is of universal application. It gives rise to the great superiority of republican over monarchical forces; and when once armies have been organised, and principles 31, 32. XIII. CHAP. thoroughly disciplined on this footing, they never can be successfully resisted but by troops in whom the same military virtues have been developed, and popular passions equally general called forth. Supposing the 1793. 53. Aided by the effects of tion. abilities of the higher orders to be equal to those of an equal number in the inferior, it is impossible that they can ever produce as great a mass of talent as will emerge on a free competition from the numerous ranks of their humble competitors. A hundred thousand men can never produce as many energetic characters as ten millions. But this system, powerful as it is in developing talent, would have failed in enabling France to combat the forces the Revolu of the coalition, had it not been for the extraordinary combination of causes which at this period brought the whole forces, physical and intellectual, of France into the ranks of the army. The Revolution had at once closed all other careers, and opened unbounded prospects to talent in that path, to all ranks indiscriminately; and as it afforded the means of elevation in a peculiar manner to the most energetic and audacious characters, that dreadful convulsion was eminently favourable to the growth of military prowess. The distress consequent on the ruin of so many branches of industry, the agitation arising from the dissolution of all the bonds of society, the restless habits acquired by successful revolt, all conspired to spread a taste for military exploit, and fill the ranks of the army with needy but ardent adventurers. Such dispositions are always prevalent during civil dissensions, because it is the nature of such conflicts to awaken the vehement passions, and disqualify for the habits of ordinary life. But they were in an especial manner excited by the campaign of 1793, first by the call which resounded through France to defend the state, and next by the thirst for military glory which was aroused by the defeat of the invasion. Feb. 6. It was in the extraordinary energy and ability of the |