He belonged to an ancient family of the Long Robe, and many of his ancestors and family connections had been distinguished lawyers and churchmen. He was intended for the magistrature, and made law his chief study. In 1789 he proceeded to Paris and became a popular leader during the first years of the Revolution. He was elected a member of the Convention in 1792. Through the next two stormy years Cambacères, by the exercise of extreme prudence, kept himself free from suspicion, although he was never identified with the extreme party, and opposed the execution of Louis XVI. He was President of the Assembly in 1794, and a member of the Committee of Public Safety. He was Minister of Justice during the Directory, and when Napoleon Bonaparte assumed the head of affairs after the eighteenth Brumaire he appointed Cambacères as Second Consul, with power to act for the First Consul during the latter’s absence. When Napoleon assumed the title of Emperor Cambacères was created Arch-Chancellor, with perpetual Presidency of the _Senate_. He held this position during the whole of the reign of Napoleon I. None of his councillors were esteemed more highly by the Emperor than Cambacères; his advice was usually moderate and sensible. He opposed the Austrian marriage and the Russian campaign. It was he who in 1814 conducted Marie Louise and her child to Blois and delivered them over to the Austrian commissioners. Her flight from Paris was contrary to his advice. During “the hundred days” he resumed his position as Chancellor. The Second Restoration banished him from France as a regicide. In 1818 the decree of his banishment was reversed, and he returned to Paris, where he died six years later at the age of seventy-one. CARNOT, LAZARE NICHOLAS MARGUERITE. Born at Noisy, Burgundy, 1753; died at Magdeburg, in Prussia, 1827. Educated in Paris at a military school he joined the army with the grade of lieutenant in 1773. He was soon distinguished by his scientific attainments as well as his literary talents. When the Revolution broke out Carnot addressed many memorials to the Assembly on the subject of financial reform. Had his proposals been then carried out national bankruptcy might have been prevented. He became a Deputy in 1791, and after the events of August 10, 1792, Carnot was despatched to the Republican army of the Rhine. During the next two years he commanded armies on the frontier, and gained many brilliant victories. He took no part in the atrocities of the Terror, but has been unjustly accused both by his contemporaries and by posterity of having approved the massacres at Avignon and the executions at Lyons. As a member of the Committee of Public Safety his name is attached to the decrees ordering these cruel punishments, but he was at this time fighting on the banks of the Rhine. He hated Robespierre and Robespierre detested him, often saying, “We need Carnot now for the war, but as soon as the war is over his head shall fall.”