JUVENILE CAREER. 3 



effaced, or disappears, or is covered with the mask of 

 conventionality. The agriculturist would never go into 

 a hothouse to learn the character, the form, or the 

 appearance of those admirable plants which are the 

 ornament of our ancient forests. Neither is it in our 

 regiments that one might hope to trace out the true 

 types of the peasants of Brittany, Normandy, Lorraine, 

 or Franche-Comte. Our " school-regiments " (if I may 

 be allowed the expression) would lead moralists quite as 

 much astray. There, a sort of mean is established, about 

 which, with very slight variations, all the youth of the 

 present day is grouped. Is this for good or for evil ? 

 Far be it from me to open such a discussion here ; I 

 merely say that such is the fact, and this fact will explain 

 why I have collected various particulars of the childhood 

 of our colleague, which might otherwise have appeared 

 trifling. 



Carnot was only ten years old when his mother, in a 

 journey to Dijon, took him with her, and, to reward him 

 for the thoughtful docility which he always showed, took 

 him to the theatre. A piece was represented that day, 

 in which evolutions of troops and battles succeeded one 

 another without intermission. The young scholar fol- 

 lowed with sustained attention the series of events which 

 were developed before him ; but, all on a sudden, he gets 

 up, he is agitated, and, in spite of the endeavours of his 

 mother, calls out in terms hardly polite, to an actor who 

 had just come on the stage. This person was the acting 

 general of the troops on whose side the young Carnot 

 was interested ; by his cries, the child was warning the 

 unskilful chief that the artillery was badly placed ; that 

 the gunners, being without cover, must necessarily be 

 killed by the first fire of musketry from the ramparts of 



