EPOCH OF THE REVOLUTION. 67 



memorable words : " The French Republic does not re- 

 quire to be recognized ; it is in Europe what the sun is 

 on the horizon : so much the worse for those who will 

 not see and profit by it." Is it then surprising, Gentle- 

 men, I ask you, that in so favourable a position of our 

 foreign affairs, Carnot believed in the possibility of a 

 conciliation between the political parties into which the 

 country was divided ; that he refused (I purposely use 

 his own words) to exorcise danger by going beyond the 

 limits of the Constitution ; that he firmly repelled any 

 thought of a covp-cTetat, — a very convenient way as- 

 suredly of getting out of a scrape ; but a dangerous 

 way, and one that almost always ends by becoming 

 injurious to the very persons who expected to benefit 

 by it? 



I should have much wished. Gentlemen, to have en- 

 tered more deeply into an examination of the part that 

 Carnot acted at that critical epoch of the Revolution. I 

 have not neglected any thing to raise at least a corner of 

 the veil which still covers an event that so greatly in- 

 fluenced the fate of our colleague, and that of the country; 

 but my efforts, I acknowledge, have been unsuccessful. 

 Documents are not wanting, but they almost all emanate 

 from writers too much intei'ested, either in excusing or 

 in branding the 18th of Fructidor, not to be suspected. 

 The recriminations full of bitterness, of violence against 

 each other, to which some old colleagues then abandoned 

 themselves, have reminded me of that wise declaration 

 by Montesquieu : " Do not listen either to Father Tour- 

 nemine or to me, when we are speaking of each other, 

 for we have ceased to be friends." The antecedents, the 

 opinions, the character, the known and avowed actions of 

 the various persons who caused the coiip-d'etat, — or be- 



