INCLINED TO MERCY. 43 
IT 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. 
