56 CARNOT. 
paper-money, and paper-money then was of no value. 
From one end of France to the other, famine had thrown 
people into an extreme state of irritation, which daily 
manifested itself in sanguinary disorders. The army 
offered a no less deplorable aspect: it was deficient in 
means of transport, in clothing, in shoes, in munitions. 
Misery had engendered a want of discipline. _ Pichegru 
was weaving criminal relations with the Prince of Condé, 
allowed himself to be beaten at Heidelberg, compromised 
the army of Jourdan, evacuated Mannheim, raised the 
siege of Mayence, and ceded the frontier of the Rhine 
to the Austrians. War recommenced in La Vendée ; 
the English threatened us with a descent in the Pays- 
Bas, and on our own coasts. In a word, on our Alpine 
frontier, Scherer and Kellermann painfully sustained a 
defensive war against the united forces of the Emperor of 
Austria, the King of Sardinia, and the confederated 
Italian princes. 
Gentlemen, the great strength of mind, united to the 
most ardent patriotism, was requisite, under such cruel 
circumstances, to induce men to accept the burden of 
public affairs. Let us add that Carnot was so little blind 
to the faults of the Constitution of the year III., and, 
above all, to the inconveniences of a multiple executive 
power, that he had publicly pointed them out in the 
midst of the Convention, at the time when this constitu- 
tion was discussed. He then exclaimed: “The destinies 
of the state will henceforward depend only on the personal 
character of five men. The more these characters differ, 
‘the more dissimilar will be the views of these five direc- 
tors, and the more will the state have to suffer from their 
alternate influence.” The majority disdained these just 
apprehensions ; faithful to a line of conduct from which — 
