MERITS OF MONTALKMRERT. 19 



cult circumstances, Carnot already showed himself such 

 as he always was afterwards — frank, just, and completely 

 insensihle to undeserved abuse. 



" If your suspicions wdre well founded," wrote he to 

 his fiery antagonist, " I should have forgotten the first 

 duties of propriety and decency ; I should have been 

 wanting, above all, in the infinite respect which military 

 men owe to a distinguished general : be assured that 

 there is not a single officer of engineers who has not 

 learnt with the same pleasure, from M. le Marquis de 

 Montalembert, how to fortify places well, as from the 

 brave D'Esse to defend them well." 



The appositeness and delicacy of this quotation will be 

 appreciated when I mention that the brave D'Esse, who, 

 in 1543, after three months of an heroic resistance, com- 

 pelled the whole forces of the emperor to raise the siege 

 of Landrecies, was an ancestor of M. de Montalembert. 



Moderation and politeness are almost infallible means 

 of success against violence and affront ; moreover, in the 

 quarrels of the press, they must often be looked upon as 

 the simple result of calculation, and as proofs of ability. 

 But Carnot's letter allowed no misapprehension as to the 

 sincerity of his sentiments. " Your work," he wrote to 

 him who had just criticized so bitterly the principle, the 

 style, and I might almost add, the punctuation, of his 



^loge, " your work is full of genius How that 



your casemates are known and proved, fortification will 

 put on a new face ; it u'ill become a new art. It w^ill be 

 no longer allowable to employ the revenues of the State 

 to construct something tolerable, when you have taught 



us to cousti'uct something good Although the 



corps of engineers has not the advantage of possessing 

 you, we do not the less consider that we have a right to 



