COMMITTEE OF PUBLIC SAFETY. 35 



law, under pain of being null, must be furnished with a 

 certain number of signatures. These prescriptions had 

 the greatest of all faults, that of being completely im- 

 practicable. Man has discovered in our days the secret 

 of going ten times as fast when he travels, of using less 

 force when he acts, and of casting his searching gaze 

 into the regions of infinity ; but he has not yet discovered 

 the means of reading a page of manuscript in less time 

 than it formerly occupied. We must allow that in that 

 respect, the most humble merchant's clerk would advance 

 equally with Cresar or Cicero, Descrates or Bossuet. The 

 innumerable dispatches which the Committee of Public 

 Safety received daily, from all points of the frontiers 

 menaced or invaded, from all the towns and villages of 

 the interior where the promoters of a new political or- 

 ganization were in violent conflict with the prejudices 

 and interests of the privileged classes, could not be ma- 

 turely examined. Zeal, activity, and devotion were not 

 sufficient to expedite so many weighty affairs ; a reform 

 was indispensable ; it concerned the safety of France. 

 Two different ways presented themselves : they could 

 demand the reorganization of the Committee, or divide 

 the work amongst its various members. The reor- 

 ganization of the Committee, in presence of a powerful 

 enemy, and in the midst of unheard-of difficulties (such 

 as no period of the history of nations had given an ex- 

 ample of), would have excited in the Convention new 

 ferments of disorder, enervated its magic power, and 

 compromised the defence of the territory. The division 

 of labour should prevail, and it did prevail. Carnot 

 was charged with the organization of the armies and 

 with their operations ; Prieur (of the Cote-d'Or) with 

 arming them ; Robert Lindet with provisioning them ; 



