2 CAKNOT. 



court of repeal ; an attorney-general of the cour royale ; 

 the directress of the hospice de Nolay ; a municipal mag- 

 istrate much esteemed whilst he was administering the 

 affairs of his corporation, and still more esteemed, if 

 possible, when, after twenty-three years' exercise of his 

 functions, he submitted to be brutally deposed sooner 

 than fail in his duty. I must mention that, like an affec- 

 tionate and provident father, the advocate of Nolay had 

 not trusted unreservedly to the virtue of the proverb, but 

 always presided personally over the early education of 

 his sons. Lazare Carnot, the subject of this biography, 

 only left his father's house to go, as it was then called, 

 through his Rhetoric and Philosophy. 



The childhood of those privileged men who, under 

 various claims, have acted a brilliant part on the stage 

 of the world, has always attracted the attention of every 

 biographer. The "know thyself" of an ancient philos- 

 opher would be but poorly interpreted if only looked on 

 as a maxim of prudence ; the maxim is susceptible of a 

 juster and wider interpretation : it presents to us, I think, 

 the whole human race, as a body, for the most important 

 species of study that we can undertake. Therefore, 

 Gentlemen, let us carefully examine how those extraor- 

 dinary minds are indicated, are born, and grow, which, 

 on their complete development, are destined to open out 

 for themselves unknown paths. These characteristics 

 should be collected with all the more interest, because 

 they become daily more rare. In our modern schools, 

 modelled on exactly the same pattern from north to south 

 and from east to west ; subjected to the same regulations 

 and to a uniform discipline ; where children enter more- 

 over at the age of nine or ten years, and do not leave 

 until they are eighteen or twenty, individual character is 



