aries at a fixed salary, and the crimes
of the former, proved or not proved, were not imputable to the latter.
Great astonishment on the part of these improvised financiers!"They make
an outcry," says Gaudin, "and assert that I am mistaken. I insist, and
repeat what I have told the President, Cambon; I affirm on says to one
of the members, 'Since that is so, go to the bureau of proces-verbaux
and scratch out the term receveurs-generaux from the decree passed this
morning.' my honor and offer to furnish them the proof of it; finally,
they are satisfied and the President "--Such are the gross blunders
committed by interlopers, and even carried out, when not warned and
restrained by veterans in the service. Cambon, accordingly, in spite
of the Jacobins, retains in his bureaux all whom he can among veteran
officials. If Carnot manages the war well, it is owing to his being
himself an educated officer and to maintaining in their positions
d'Arcon, d'Obenheim, de Grimoard, de Montalembert and Marescot, all
eminent men bequeathed to him by the ancient regime.[4160] Reduced,
before the 9th of Thermidor, to perfect nullity, the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs is not again to become useful and active until the professional
diplomats, Miot, Colchen, Otto and Reinhart,[4161] resume their
ascendancy and influence. It is a professional diplomat, Barthelemy,
who, after the 9th of Thermidor, really directs the foreign policy of
the Convention, and brings about the peace of Basle.

III. The three classes of Notables.

The Nobility.--Its physical and moral preparation through
feats of arms.--The military spirit.--High character.
--Conduct of officers in 1789-1792.--Service for which these
nobles were adapted.

Three classes, the nobles, the clergy and the bourgeoisie, provided
this superior elite, and, compared with the rest of the nation, they
themselves formed an elite.--Thirty thousand gentlemen, scattered
through the provinces, had been brought up from infancy to the
profession of arms; generally poor, they lived on their rural estates
without luxuries, comforts or curiosity, in the society of wood-rangers
and game-keepers, frugally and with rustic habits, in the open air, in
such a way as to ensure robust constitutions. A child, at six years
of age, mounted a horse; he followed the hounds, and hardened himself
against inclemencies;[4162] afterwards, in the academies, he rendered
his limbs supple by exercise