34 CARNOT. 
eal calumny, had soiled with its infected slaver. My 
work, furthermore, was not without some difficulties. 
Perhaps no one henceforth will have the opportunity 
to reunite its elements. In a few years, indeed, the 
colleagues and fellow labourers of Carnot, from whom. 
I have been able to gather some lights and evidences, 
will have paid the debt of nature. 
In 1793 the convention was the only organized power 
in the State, capable of opposing an effective dyke 
against the overflow of enemies, who came from all 
parts of Europe to cast themselves on France, and 
menace her nationality. The nationality of a people is 
like honour: the slightest wound to it becomes mortal. 
Such were, Gentlemen, the sentiments of very many 
members of the Convention, whose memory France re- 
veres; such were the ties which attached them to the 
perilous post whither election had called them. 
In creating the “Committee of Public Safety,” (6th 
April 1793,) the Convention had reserved to itself the 
choice of its members. Up to the famous 31st of May, 
it counted only neutral members, or at any rate such as 
were strangers to the factions of the Assembly who were 
combating each other to the death. After several partial 
renewals it was composed, on the 11th September 1793, 
of Robespierre, Saint-Just, Couthon, Collot d’Herbois, 
Billaud-Varennes, Prieur (of the Marne), Prieur (of the 
Céte-d’Or), Carnot, Jean-bon Saint-André, Barére, Hé- 
rault de Séchelles, and Robert Lindet. 
The Convention, when it delegated such great powers 
to the Committee of Public Safety, desired that every 
affair should be a subject of profound discussion and de- 
liberation in that committee ; that the majority of voices 
should decide. The decisions, to acquire the force of 
