i 
96 . CARNOT. 
hesitate to offer you the small means that remain to me. 
It is little, certainly, to offer a sexagenary arm; but I 
have thought that the example of a soldier whose patriotic 
_ sentiments are known, might rally to your Eagles many 
men who are undecided what line to adopt, and who may 
allow themselves to be persuaded, that in abandoning 
them, they were serving their country. 
“There is still time for you, Sire, to conquer a glorious 
peace, and to have the love of the great people restored to 
you.—I am, &c.” 
The details that I have thought it right to give you, 
relative to the circumstances connected with the writing 
of this letter, will, I trust, undeceive those who, accus- 
tomed to concentrate all their affections on the person. of 
Napoleon, fancied in Carnot’s concluding words, a cruel 
attack from the old democrat, prepared at long-shot «lis- 
tance, against the man who had confiscated the Repullic 
to his own advantage. In truth, Gentlemen, it required 
a man to be very determined to substitute personal ques- 
tions for the national weal, to blame the illustrious sexa- 
genarian’s offer to defend a fortress, when otherwise he 
had, relative to capitulations, not long since resumed his 
idea, expressed in the noble words of the famous Blaise 
de Montluc to Marshal de Brissac: I would rather be 
dead than see my name in such writings. 
Carnot started from Paris for Antwerp at the end of 
January, without having even seen the Emperor. It_ 
was time, Gentlemen, for the new governor could not 
reach the fortress on the morning of the 2d of February, 
but by threading the enemy’s bivouacs. ‘The bombard- 
ment of the town, or rather the bombardment of our fleet, 
for there were some English among the besiegers, began 
the next day; it lasted throughout the day of the 3d, 
