70 CARNOT. 
end, the violent and illegal mutilation of the national rep- 
resentation may not appear to be the exclusive result of 
the animosities and personal antipathies excited, or, at 
least, in great measure fostered, by the intrigues of several 
notorious women. Still the investigations of future his- 
torians, however extended and complicated they may be, 
can never militate against the perfect uprightness of our 
co-academician. Already there remain no vestiges of 
the accusations detailed in the official report presented in 
the year VI. to the Council of the Five-Hundred: in a 
few pages, Carnot reduced them to nought. All that 
malevolence or mere preconception dares to borrow now 
from the pamphlet elaborated with so much artifice by 
Bailleul, is reduced to an empty reproach coarsely ex- 
pressed, and which I should have disdained to mention, 
had not Carnot himself indicated on what conditions he 
accepted it. 
Political hacks call by the name of simpletons, all men 
who would disdain such advantages as are bought at the 
expense of good faith, honesty, and morality. But we 
must not be deceived ; simpleton is the polite epithet ; 
blockhead is preferred when we do not feel ourselves 
bound to keep within limits or to adhere to the language 
of good society. This epithet, disdainfully cast by Bail- 
leul in the official report, had cruelly mortified Carnot ; 
it is ironically repeated in almost every page of our col- 
league’s answer. He says in one part: “Yes! the 
blockhead Aristides is chased from his country ; the 
blockhead Socrates drank hemlock; the blockhead Cato 
is reduced to commit suicide; the blockhead Cicero is 
assassinated by order of the triumvirs. Yes! the block- 
head Phocion is also led to the scaffold, but glorying in 
having to undergo the fate reserved in all ages for those 
who serve their country well.” 
