76 CARNOT. 



given an incontestable superiority to our arms, when the 

 independence of the country was again assured, Carnot 

 resigned his appointment. He would not consent to 

 appear an accomplice in the changes that were prepar- 

 ing in the form of the government. Accordingly, on 

 the 1 6th Vendemiaire, year IX., he wrote as follows : 

 " Citizen Consuls, I again send you my resignation ; I 

 beg you will not defer accepting it." 



It is not from a trifling cause that people part thus 

 laconically. The letter I have just given was a corollary 

 of the earnest disputes that were daily occurring between 

 the Republic and the Empire, in the persons of the first 

 Consul and the Minister of War. 



Recalled to public affairs as a Tribune in 1802, Car- 

 not opposed the creation of the Legion of Honour. He 

 thinks I was going to say, he foresees that a distinc- 

 tion bestowed without inquiry by the uncontrolled will of 

 one man, will end, notwithstanding its imposing title, and 

 according to the natural course of things in this world, 

 by no longer being any more than the means of attaching 

 followers, and reducing to silence a swarm of little vani- 

 ties. Carnot also with all his might opposed the creation 

 of a Consulate for life ; but it was especially at the 

 moment when it was proposed to raise Bonaparte to the 

 Imperial Throne, that he redoubled his energy and 

 ardour. History has already recorded his noble words ; 

 she will also say, that surrounded by old Jacobins, sur- 

 rounded even by those same men who, on the 18th 

 Fructidor, had persecuted him as a royalist, Carnot re- 

 mained standing nearly alone in the midst of the general 

 apostasy, as if at least to prove to the world that politi- 

 cal conscience is not quite an empty word. 



The Tribunate was soon suppressed. Carnot retired 



