EPOCH OF THE REVOLUTION. 67 
memorable words: “The French Republic does not re- 
quire to be recognized ; it is in Europe what the sun is 
on the horizon: so much the worse for those who will 
not see and profit by it.” Is it then surprising, Gentle- 
men, I ask you, that in so favourable a position of our 
foreign affairs, Carnot believed in the possibility of a 
conciliation between the political parties into which the 
country was divided; that he refused (I purposely use 
his own words) to exorcise danger by going beyond the 
limits of the Constitution ; that he firmly repelled any 
thought of a coup-d'état,—a very convenient way as- 
suredly of getting out of a scrape; but a dangerous 
way, and one that almost always ends by becoming 
injurious to the very persons who expected to benefit 
by it? 
I should have much wished, Gentlemen, to have en- 
tered more deeply into an examination of the part that 
Carnot acted at that critical epoch of the Revolution. I 
have not neglected any thing to raise at least a corner of 
the veil which still covers an event that so greatly in- 
fluenced the fate of our colleague, and that of the country ; 
but my efforts, I acknowledge, have been unsuccessful. 
Documents are not wanting, but they almost all emanate 
from writets too much interested, either in excusing or 
in branding the 18th of Fructidor, not to be suspected. 
The. recriminations full of bitterness, of violence against 
each other, to which some old colleagues then abandoned 
themselves, have reminded me of that wise declaration 
by Montesquieu: “ Do not listen either to Father Tour- 
hemine or to me, when we are speaking of each other, 
for we have ceased to be friends.” ‘The antecedents, the 
opinions, the character, the known and avowed actions of 
the various persons who caused the coup-d’état,—or be- 
