Carnot

Carnot, Lazare Nicolas Marguerite (1753-1823), French general, statesman, and patriot. After diligent study and brilliant examinations, he went in 1771 as second lieutenant of engineers to the royal school of Mezieres, and quitted it with the rank of first lieutenant in 1773. He then went to Calais, where he followed up ardently his military studies, and in 1783 he wrote his Eloge de Vauban, which so pleased Prince Henry, brother of Frederick II., that he offered to advance Carnot's fortunes if he would take service in the Prussian army. At the outbreak of the Revolution he was deputy to the Legislative Assembly for the Pas-de-Calais, and voted for most of the revolutionary measures. As a member of the National Convention he voted for the death of Louis XVI. In 1793 he was elected member of the Committee of Public Safety, and was charged with the direction of the army. It was by his splendid organisation in this and the following year that the success of the French army was attained, and the admiration of his contemporaries showed itself in the bestowal of the epithet organisateur de la victoire. Among his other merits was that of recognising and employing the talents of General Hoche, and, at a later period, those of Napoleon Bonaparte. He had for a time to leave France owing to a disagreement with the Republican authorities, but the 18th Brumaire brought him back as war minister to the First Consul. But a misunderstanding with Napoleon drove him into retirement, though each had an admiration for the other, and showed it. In 1814, after the disaster of Leipzig, he offered his services to the Emperor, who accepted them gladly, and appointed him general of division and governor of Antwerp, of which city he made a splendid and celebrated defence. During the Hundred Days he was appointed Minister of the Interior and Count of the Empire, and after Waterloo advised Napoleon to continue his resistance. "Carnot," said the Emperor, "I have come to know you too late!" After the restoration he was exiled, and went first to Warsaw, then to Magdeburg, where he passed his latter years. A grandson, Marie Francois Sadi, born 1837, was elected President of the French republic in 1887. He was assassinated in 1894.