74 CARNOT. 



him over to Nyon. It was already very late ; the con 

 stables of the Directory were watching their prey. Our 

 colleague goes direct to his host, and, without any pre 

 amble, asks pardon for having introduced himself into 

 his house under a false name. &quot; I am proscribed, I am 

 Car not, they are going to arrest me ; my fate is in your 

 hands : will you save me ? &quot; said he. The honest laun 

 dry man replied, &quot; Without any doubt.&quot; Immediately 

 he muffled up Carnot with a blouse, with a cotton cap, 

 with a dossier; he lays on his head a large loose 

 bundle of dirty linen, which hung down to the shoulders 

 of the pretended Jacob, and hid his figure. By favour 

 of such a disguise, the man who a short time before by 

 writing a few lines could scatter or arrest in their march 

 armies commanded by a Marceau, a Hoche, a Moreau, a 

 Bonaparte ; to shed hope or fear at Naples, at Rome, at 

 Vienna ; now melancholy vicissitude of things here 

 below, having borrowed the trappings of a laundry- 

 man s labourer, reaches in safety the little boat, in which 

 he is to escape from being sent a prisoner back to France. 

 In the boat, a new and strange emotion awaited Carnot. 

 In the boatman appointed by M. Didier he recognizes 

 that same Pichegru, whose culpable intrigues had per 

 haps rendered the 18th Fructidor inevitable. During 

 all the time occupied in crossing the lake, not a single 

 word was exchanged between the two proscribed men. 

 Indeed, the time, the place, the circumstances were not 

 suitable for political debates, for recriminations ! Car 

 not, moreover, had soon to congratulate himself on his 

 reserve ; on reading the French journals at Nyon, he 

 learnt that he had been deceived by a fortuitous resem 

 blance ; that his travelling companion, far from being a 

 general, had never manoeuvred any thing more than his 



