Carnot surpassed not only
Louvois, but perhaps all other names save one in modern military
history, by uniting to the most powerful gifts for organisation, both
the strategic talent that planned the momentous campaign of 1794, and
the splendid personal energy and skill that prolonged the defence of
Antwerp against the allied army in 1814 Partisans dream of the
unrivalled future of peace, glory, and freedom that would have fallen to
the lot of France, if only the gods had brought about a hearty union
between the military genius of Carnot and the political genius of
Robespierre. So, no doubt, after the restoration of Charles II. in
England, there were good men who thought that all would have gone very
differently, if only the genius of the great creator of the Ironsides
had taken counsel with the genius of Venner, the Fifth-Monarchy Man, and
Feak, the Anabaptist prophet.

The time was now come when such men as Robespierre were to be tried with
fire, when they were to drink the cup of fury and the dregs of the cup
of trembling. Sybils and prophets have already spoken their inexorable
decree, as Goethe has said, on the day that first gives the man to the
world; no time and no might can break the stamped mould of his
character; only as life wears on, do all its aforeshapen lines come into
light. He is launched into a sea of external conditions, that are as
independent of his own will as the temperament with which he confronts
them. It is action that tries, and variation of circumstance. The leaden
chains of use bind many an ugly unsuspected prisoner in the soul; and
when the habit of their lives has been sundered, the most immaculate are
capable of antics beyond prevision. A great crisis of the world was
prepared for Robespierre and those others, his allies or his destroyers,
who with him came like the lightning and went like the wind.

At the end of 1788 the King of France found himself forced to summon the
States-General. It was their first assembly since 1614. On the memorable
Fourth of May, 1789, Robespierre appeared at Versailles as one of the
representatives of the third estate of his native province of Artois.
The excitement and enthusiasm of the elections to this renowned
assembly, the immense demands and boundless expectations that they
disclosed, would have warned a cool observer of events, if in that
heated air a cool observer could have been found, that the hour had
struck for the fulfilment of those grim appreh