COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF. 45 



ciennes, Conde, opened their gates to the enemy ; May- 

 ence, pressed by famine, and without the hope of relief, 

 capitulated ; two Spanish armies invaded our territory ; 

 20,000 Piedmontese were crossing the Alps ; the 40,000 

 Vendeans of Cathelineau were taking Bressuire, Thouars, 

 Saumur, Angers ; they menaced Tours, le Mans, and 

 attacked Nantes on the right bank of the Loire, whilst 

 Charette manoeuvred on the opposite bank ; Toulon re- 

 ceived an English fleet into its port ; in a word, our 

 principal cities, Marseilles, Caen, Lyons, separated them- 

 selves violently from the central government. 



You have now before your eyes, Gentlemen, a faint 

 image of the dangers which menaced our country ; and 

 have some people dared to pretend that the Convention, 

 that the terrible Convention, hoped to escape from the 

 imminent catastrophe that almost all Europe thought 

 inevitable, without even establishing a certain connec- 

 tion in the operations of its generals ? and can it have 

 been imagined that, in entrusting one of its members 

 with the almost sovereign direction of its military affairs, 

 it expected from him only the methodical measures and 

 regulations compassed by a purveyor or intendant of an 

 army ? No, no ! no one could possibly in good faith 

 adopt such ideas. 



Do not, however, believe that I undervalue Carnot's 

 administrative services. I admire, on the contrary, their 

 noble simplicity. There was not, assuredly, at that time 

 in his administration, either that inextricable series of 

 scribbling which the smallest affair entails on us in the 

 present day ; nor that artistic network entangling every 

 one, from the junior clerk of the office up to the head of 

 the department, in so intricate a manner, that the firmest 

 and boldest hand could not hope to break a link or sep- 



