lions of souls, to
justly estimate probable resistances, and calculate available forces,
to recognize and take advantage of the one decisive moment, to combine
executive means, to find men of action, to measure the effect produced,
to foresee near and remote contingencies, to regret nothing and take
things coolly, to accept crimes in proportion to their political
efficacy, to dodge before insurmountable obstacles, even in contempt
of current maxims, to consider objects and men the same as an engineer
contracting for machinery and calculating horse-power[3146]--such are
the faculties of which he gave proof on the 10th of August and the 2nd
of September, during his effective dictatorship between the 10th of
August and the 21st of September, afterwards in the Convention, on the
first Committee of Public Safety, on the 31st of May and on the 2nd of
June:[3147] we have seen him busy at work. Up to the last, in spite of
his partisans, he has tried to diminish or, at least, not add to, the
resistance the government had to overcome. Nearly up to the last, in
spite of his adversaries, he tried to increase or, at least, not destroy
the available forces of the government. In defiance of the outcries
of the clubs, which clamor for the extermination of the Prussians, the
capture of the King of Prussia, the overthrow of all thrones, and the
murder of Louis XVI., he negotiated the almost pacific withdrawal of
Brunswick;[3148] he strove to detach Prussia from the coalition;[3149]
he wanted to turn a war of propaganda into one of interests;[3150] he
caused the Convention to pass the decree that France would not in any
way interfere with foreign governments; he secured an alliance with
Sweden; he prescribed beforehand the basis of the treaty of Basle,
and had an idea of saving the King.[3151] In spite of the distrust and
attacks of the Girondists, who strove to discredit him and put him out
of the way, he persists in offering them his hand; he declared war on
them only because they refused to make peace,[3152] and he made efforts
to save them when they were down. Amidst so many ranters and scribblers
whose logic is mere words and whose rage is blind, who grind out phrases
like a hand-organ, or are wound up for murder, his intellect, always
capacious and supple, went right to facts, not to disfigure and pervert
them, but to accept them, to adapt himself to them, and to comprehend
them. With a mind of this quality one goes far no matter in w