Carnot, Lazare Nicolas Marguerite 1753-1823
French revolutionary and politician

Born in Nolay, Burgundy, he was known as the 'organizer of victory' during the French Revolutionary Wars. He entered the army as an engineer, in 1791 became a member of the Legislative Assembly, and in the Convention voted for the death of Louis XVI. Elected to the Committee of Public Safety, he raised 14 armies, and drew up a plan by which the forces of the European reaction were repelled from the frontier. Though he tried to restrict the power of Robespierre he was accused after the Reign of Terror, but the charge was dismissed. In 1797, as a member of the Directory, he opposed the extreme measures of Paul Barras, and was sentenced to deportation as a suspected royalist. Escaping to Germany, he wrote a defence which led to the overthrow of his colleagues in 1799. The coup d'�tat of 18th Brumaire (1799) brought him back to Paris, where in 1800, as Minister of War, he helped to organize the successful Italian and Rhenish campaigns. He retired when he understood the ambitious plans of Napoleon I, but later commanded at Antwerp (1814). During the Hundred Days he was Minister of the Interior, but after the second restoration (1830) he was banished, retiring first to Warsaw and then to Magdeburg. He was the author of De la d�fense des places fortes (1810, 'On the Defence of Fortified Towns').