a ee. 
HIS POLITICAL AND PRIVATE LIFE. 105 
The member of the Committee of Public Safety, who, 
in 1798, organized the fourteen armies of the Republic, 
who arranged all their movements, who named and 
appointed generals, who, at need, as at Wattignies, de- 
graded them during the battle under the enemy’s can- 
non,—was only a Captain of Engineers. 
And later, when the Council of the Five Hundred, 
and the Council of the Elders of the Republic of the 
year III., unanimously called Carnot to the Executive 
Directory; when having again become the supreme 
arbiter of our military operations, he sent Hoche to 
la Vendée, Jourdan to the Meuse, and Moreau to the 
‘Rhine, instead of Pichegru; when, by the most fortu- 
nate inspiration, he confided the command of the army 
of Italy to Bonaparte, our colleague gained a step, but 
only one step; he had become chef de bataillon by 
seniority ! 
Carnot still held only this humble rank, when the 
coup d’état of the 18th Fructidor banished him from 
France. 
The extremely hierarchical ideas of the First Consul 
could never have reconciled themselves to a mere chef 
de bataillon being Minister of War. Wherefore in the 
year IX., he did not elevate Carnot to that eminent post 
until after he had named him Inspector General of 
Reviews. Still, it was only turning the obstacle aside, 
instead of removing it. The semi-military, semi-civil, 
grade of Inspector General of Reviews, did not prevent 
the Minister of War, under the government of the Con- 
suls, from being a simple chef de batailion in the Corps 
of Engineers. 
Carnot quitted the Ministry the 16th Vendémiaire, 
year IX. ‘Twelve days after, his suecessor asked for the 
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