40 CARNOT. 
reserve. All at once a report was spread at Paris, that 
the bread of those volunteers had been poisoned, that 
some monsters had mixed pounded glass with all the 
flour furnished to them, that two hundred soldiers had 
died already, and the hospitals were overflowing with 
sick men. The exasperation of the Parisian populace 
rose to its highest pitch: the depdt at Soissons was 
formed against the royal will; the crime then must be 
imputed to the King, to the Queen, to all their adherents. 
Before acting, they only awaited the report of the com- 
missary who had been sent to the camp. This commis- 
sary was Carnot. His truthful examination reduced all 
this phantasmagoria to nothing : there were no men dead : 
there were no men sick: the flour was not poisoned ; 
but some panes of glass, broken by the wind, or by the 
ball of some recruit, had fallen from the window of an 
old church, and happened (not pulverized, but in large 
pieces,) to lie on one single bag of flour. The upright 
testimony of the honest man calmed the popular tem- 
pest. 
He was not a party-man (understood of course in its 
unfavourable meaning); but one who, often charged 
with important missions to the armies and to the interior, 
fulfilled his duties with such moderation, that he could 
safely, when circumstances required it, without fear of 
being contradicted, publicly render to himself the testi- 
mony of never having caused the arrest of any one. By 
searching. into the offices of the Committee of Safety, 
we should there find equally clear proofs of the benevo- 
lent indulgence of Carnot towards persons professing 
different political opinions from his, provided always 
that they were united to honest dealing, and a warm 
antipathy to the intervention of foreigners in the internal 
