70 CARNOT. 



end, the violent and illegal mutilation of the national rep- 

 resentation may not appear to be the exclusive result of 

 the animosities and personal antipathies excited, or, at 

 least, in great measure fostered, by the intrigues of several 

 notorious women. Still the investigations of future his- 

 torians, however extended and complicated they may be, 

 can never militate against the perfect uprightness of our 

 co-academician. Already there remain no vestiges of 

 the accusations detailed in the official report presented in 

 the year VI. to the Council of the Five-Hundred : in a 

 few pages, Carnot reduced them to nought. All that 

 malevolence or mere preconception dares to borrow now 

 from the pamphlet elaborated with so much artifice by 

 Bailleul, is reduced to an empty reproach coarsely ex- 

 pressed, and which I should have disdained to mention, 

 had not Carnot himself indicated on what conditions he 

 accepted it. 



Political hacks call by the name of simpletons, all men 

 who would disdain such advantages as are bought at the 

 expense of good faith, honesty, and morality. But we 

 must not be deceived ; simpleton is the polite epithet ; 

 blockhead is preferred when we do not feel ourselves 

 bound to keep within limits or to adhere to the language 

 of good society. This epithet, disdainfully cast by Bail- 

 leul in the official report, had cruelly mortified Carnot ; 

 it is ironically repeated in almost every page of our col- 

 league's answer. He says in one part : " Yes ! the 

 blockhead Aristides is chased from his country ; the 

 blockhead Socrates drank hemlock ; the blockhead Cato 

 is reduced to commit suicide ; the blockhead Cicero is 

 assassinated by order of the triumvirs. Yes ! the block- 

 head Phocion is also led to the scaffold, but glorying in 

 having to undergo the fate reserved in all ages for those 

 who serve their country well." 



