INCLINED TO MERCY. 43 



I had read, even in royalist works, and I had read 

 also in some writings published by republicans, that 

 Carnot had saved, in the Committee of Public Safety, 

 more men than his colleagues had immolated. Carnot, 

 then, did not absent himself from the meetings except 

 when military affairs entirely absorbed his time ; Carnot, 

 then, sometimes attended the deliberations of the Com- 

 mittee, and on those occasions innocence could depend on 

 an advocate full of feeling and firmness. Only a few 

 days ago, chance enabled me to discover that the part of 

 volunteer defender was not the only one that Carnot took 

 upon himself. 



There is amongst you, Gentlemen, a venerable aca- 

 demician equally versed in theoretical and in applied 

 mathematics ; he has gloriously attached his name to 

 some useful labours, and to some vast projects that the 

 future, perhaps, will realize. He has gone through a 

 long career, without making, certainly without deserving, 

 an enemy ! and yet his head was once menaced, and 

 some wretches wished to make it fall, at the very time 

 that he was projecting one of the scientific monuments 

 that have reflected most honour on the revolutionary 

 era. An anonymous letter informed our colleague of 

 his danger. The storm is dissipated, but it may gather 

 again in an instant ; the friendly hand traces out a line 

 of conduct ; rules of prudence point out the necessity of 

 preparing a retreat. Nor will it leave the work un- 

 finished, but will again take up the pen if the danger 

 reappears. 



The anonymous writer, Gentlemen, was Carnot ; the 

 geometer whom he thus preserved to science, and to our 

 affections, was M. de Prony. At that epoch Prony and 

 Carnot had never seen each other. 



