ESCAPE FROM THE LUXEMBOURG. 71 



Carnot escaped from the Luxembourg at the moment 

 that the myrmidons were entering his room, to arrest 

 him. A family of Burgundian artisans received and 

 concealed him. Those whose life is an uninterrupted 

 series of privations, know well how to compassionate 

 misfortune. Our colleague afterwards sought refuge in 

 the house of M. Oudot, a great partisan of the coup-d'etat 

 on the 18th Fructidor ; and where, from that date, no 

 one would have thought of seeking the proscribed Direc- 

 tor. Carnot had not yet left Paris, when his name was 

 erased from the list of the members of that national 

 Institute, to the creation of which he had so much con- 

 tributed. 



Some laws proclaimed on the 19th and 20th of Fruc- 

 tidor, year V., declared all the places vacant that had 

 been held by the citizens struck by the coup-d'etat of the 

 18th. The Minister of the Interior, Letourneux, there- 

 fore wrote to the Institute enjoining it to proceed to the 

 naming of a successor to Carnot. The three classes 

 then proceeded to the nomination of the members of 

 each class. One hundred and four voters took part in 

 the election ; but the urn did not receive one white ball ! 



I know, Gentlemen, how much, in Revolutionary 

 times, the most upright, the most firm minds, are influ- 

 enced by public opinion ; I know that after the lapse of 

 time that separates us from the 18th of Fructidor, no 

 one can conceive that he has a right to blame the Insti- 

 tute at all for having yielded to the ministerial orders ; 

 still, I will here express freely my regret, that imperious 

 circumstances did not permit our honourable predeces- 

 sors, since the Fructidorian era, to draw a marked line 

 of distinction between the politician and the philosopher. 

 Under the Regency, in the affair of the Abbe Saint- 



