74 CARNOT. 
him over to Nyon. It was already very late; the con- 
stables of the Directory were watching their prey. Our 
colleague goes direct to his host, and, without any pre- 
amble, asks pardon for having introduced himself into 
his house under a false name. “Iam proscribed, I am 
Carnot, they are going to arrest me ; my fate is in your 
hands: will you save me?” said he. The honest laun- 
dryman replied, “ Without any doubt.” Immediately 
he muffled up Carnot with a blouse, with a cotton cap, 
with a dossier; he lays on his head a large loose 
bundle of dirty linen, which hung down to the shoulders 
of the pretended Jacob, and hid his figure. By favour 
of such a disguise, the man who a short time before by 
writing a few lines could scatter or arrest in their march 
armies commanded by a Marceau, a Hoche, a Moreau, a 
Bonaparte ; to shed hope or fear at Naples, at Rome, at 
Vienna; now—melancholy vicissitude of things here 
below,—having borrowed the trappings of a laundry-— 
man’s labourer, reaches in safety the little boat, in which 
he is to escape from being sent a prisoner back to France. 
In the boat, a new and strange emotion awaited Carnot. 
In the boatman appointed by M. Didier he recognizes 
that same Pichegru, whose culpable intrigues had per- 
haps rendered the 18th Fructidor inevitable. During 
all the time occupied in crossing the lake, not a single 
word was exchanged between the two proscribed men. 
Indeed, the time, the place, the circumstances were not 
suitable for political debates, for recriminations! Car- 
not, moreover, had soon to congratulate himself on his 
reserv® ; on reading the French journals at Nyon, he 
lear .at he had been deceived by a fortuitous resem- 
ance; that his travelling companion, far from being a 
general, had never manceuvred any thing more than his 
