And yet he was no dreamer. While a member of the National Assembly he had displayed such practical common sense in his chosen field of military science, that in 1793 the Committee of Safety intrusted to him the control of the war. The standard of rank and command was no longer birth nor seniority nor influence, but merit. The wild and ignorant hordes of men which the conscription law had brought into the field were something hitherto unknown in Europe. It was Carnot who organized, clothed, fed, and drilled them. It was he who devised the new tactics and evolved the new and comprehensive plans which made his national armies the power they became. It was in Carnot's administration that the young generals first came to the fore. It was by his favor that almost every man of that galaxy of modern warriors who so long dazzled Europe by their feats of arms first appeared as a candidate for advancement. Moreau, Macdonald, Jourdan, Bernadotte, Kléber, Mortier, Ney, Pichegru, Desaix, Berthier, Augereau, and Bonaparte himself,--each one of these was the product of Carnot's system. He was the creator of the armies which for a time made all Europe tributary to France. Throughout an epoch which laid bare the meanness of most natures, his character was unsmirched. He began life under the ancient régime by writing and publishing a eulogy on Vauban, who had been disgraced for his plain speaking to Louis XIV. When called to a share in the government he was the advocate of a strong nationality, of a just administration within, and of a fearless front to the world. While minister of war he on one occasion actually left his post and hastened to Maubeuge, where defeat was threatening Jourdan, devised and put into operation a new plan, led in person the victorious assault, and then returned to Paris to inspire the country and the army with news of the victory; all this he did as if it were commonplace duty, without advertising himself by parade or ceremony. Even Robespierre had trembled before his biting irony and yet dared not, as he wished, include him among his victims. After the events of Thermidor, when it was proposed to execute all those who had authorized the bloody deeds of the Terror, excepting Carnot, he prevented the sweeping measure by standing in his place to say that he too had acted with the rest, had held like them the conviction that the country could not otherwise be saved, and that therefore he must share their fate.