ELOGE OF VAUBAN. 15 
The éloge from which these two passages are taken 
had always appeared to me so eloquent and true, that, at 
the moment when I first discovered an oration on Vau- 
ban amongst the productions of our colleague, I burst 
out. into heartfelt abuse at the academic programme 
which, taking advantage of the inexperience of a young 
man, had exposed him to so formidable a comparison. 
Indeed, I should not have been more uneasy, if I had 
discovered that Carnot had endeavoured to rewrite La 
Mécanique of Lagrange, Athalie, or the Fables of La 
Fontaine. ‘These fears were superfluous. The Bur- 
gundian members of the Academy of Dijon were right 
in thinking that the Burgundian Vauban might still be- 
come an interesting subject of study, even after the bril- 
liant portrait traced by Fontenelle. And, in truth, the 
Secretary of the Academy of Sciences had prudently 
left in the shade one of the finest points of the illustrious 
marshal. 
It would seem that the éloge of Vauban, from the pen 
‘of an officer of engineers, must consist principally of an 
exact appreciation of the means of attack and defence 
with which the illustrious marshal endowed the art of 
war. This was not the plan, however, which Carnot 
adopted. It was principally for the qualities of the 
heart, for virtue, and for patriotism, that Vauban seemed 
to him worthy of admiration. “ He was,” said he, “one 
of those men whom nature gives to the world formed 
entirely for benevolence ; gifted, like the bee, with an 
innate activity for the general welfare; who cannot 
separate their lot from that of the Republic, and who, 
intimate members of society, live and flourish, or suffer 
and languish, with it.” 
Prince Henry of Prussia was present at the assembly 
