CARNOT, LAZARE HIPPOLYTE French statesman, the second son of L. N. M. Carnot (q.v.), was born at Saint-Omer on Oct. 6, 18o 1. Hippolyte Carnot lived at first in exile with his father, returning to France only in 1823. He wrote, in 183o, an Exposé de la doctrine Saint-Simonienne, and collabo rated in the Saint-Simonian journal Le Producteur. In March 1839, after the dissolution of the chamber by Louis Philippe, he was elected deputy for Paris (re-elected in 1842 and in 1846), and sat in the group of the Radical Left. At the revolution of 1848 he became minister of education in the provisional Govern ment. In proposing a law for free and obligatory primary educa tion he declared himself against purely secular schools, holding that "the minister and the schoolmaster are the two columns on which rests the edifice of the republic." By this attitude he alien ated both the Right and the Republicans of the Extreme Left, and was forced to resign on July 5. Under the Empire he refused to sit in the Corps Legislatif until 1864, in order not to have to take the oath. From 1864 to 1869 he was in the republican opposition, taking a very active part. He was a member of the Constituent Assembly of 1871, and in 1875 was nominated a senator for life. He died on March 16, 1888, three months after the election of his elder son, M. F. S. Carnot, to the presidency of the republic. He had published Le Ministere de l'instruction publique et des cultes du 24e fevrier au se juillet 1848 (1849), Memoires sur Lazare Carnot (2 vols. 1861-64, new ed., 1907), Memoires de Barere (with David Angers, 4 vols., A notice by Lefevre-Portalis in vol. xxxviii. of the Seances of the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences.
C A R N O T, LAZARE NICOLAS MARGUERITE French general, was born at Nolay, Cote d'Or, on May He entered the corps of engineers, becoming captain in 1783, just after the publication of his first work, an Essai sur les machines en general. In 1784 he wrote his Eloge of Vauban. But as the result of a controversy with Montalembert, Carnot abandoned the official, or Vauban, theories of the art of fortification, and went over to the "perpendicular" school of Montalembert. He was consequently imprisoned, on the pretext of having f ought a duel, and only released when selected to accompany Prince Henry of Prussia in a visit to Vauban's forti fications. The Revolution drew him into political life, and he was elected a deputy for the Pas de Calais. Carnot was a stern and sincere republican, and voted for the execution of the king. In the campaigns of 1792 and 1793 he was continually employed as a commissioner in military matters, his greatest service being in April, 1793, on the north-eastern frontier, where the disastrous battle of Neerwinden and the subsequent defection of Dumouriez had thrown everything into confusion.
Carnot was the real organizer of victory for the revolutionary armies. He was a military genius who cast aside the hampering traditions of the Prussian military school, at that time blindly followed by other European armies. He abandoned the idea of seeking to defend all points, and formed the French armies into large masses able to strike deadly blows at the enemy. The successes of Jourdan, Hoche and Pichegru were largely due to the new conceptions of strategy inculcated by Carnot. The changes he made in army tactics were equally important. Deploy ment in line gave way to the older system of attack in columns formation, under which full use could be made of the superior quality and intelligence of the French soldier. Side by side with these changes in the art of fighting, Carnot carried out other im portant administrative changes, notably in the organization of the food supply. Under his new system the French soldier was fed, clothed, and supplied with munitions far more efficiently than before.
After his reorganization of the army front Carnot returned to Paris and was made a member of the Committee of Public Safety. He was charged with duties corresponding to those of the modern chief of the general staff and adjutant-general. As a member of the committee he signed its decrees. His whole attention was given to the defence of the frontiers. He organized 14 armies, which included over a million men, in the course of a single year. His labours were incessant practically every military document in the archives of the committee was Carnot's own work, and he was repeatedly in the field with the armies. His part in Jourdan's great victory at Wattignies was so important that the credit of the day has often been assigned to Carnot. The winter of 94 was spent in new preparations, in instituting a severe disci pline in the new and ill-trained troops of the republic, and in improvising means and material of war. He continued to visit the armies at the front, and to inspire them with energy. He acquiesced in the fall of Robespierre in 1794, but later defended Barere and others among his colleagues, declaring that he him self had constantly signed papers without reading them, as it was physically impossible to do so in the press of business. When Carnot's arrest was demanded in May, 1795, a deputy cried "Will you dare to lay hands on the man who has organized victory?" Carnot was elected one of the five Directors in November, and continued to direct the war department during the campaign of 1796. Late in 1796 he was made a member (1st class) of the Institute, which he had helped to establish. He was for two periods president of the Directory, but in its later stages found himself at variance with Barras and his adherents. On the coup d'etat of the i8th Fructidor (1797) he was warned in time and took refuge abroad. The ridiculous accusations of conspir acy against the republic drew from him a Reponse au rapport de I. C. Bailleul, which gives an admirable account of the work ing of the constitution of Carnot returned to France after the i8th Brumaire (1799) and was re-elected to the Institute in 1800. Early in i800 he became minister of war, and he accompanied Moreau in the early part of the Rhine campaign. His chief work was, however, in reducing the expenses of the armies. Contrary to the usual custom he refused to receive presents from contractors, and he effected much-needed reforms in every part of the military administration. He tendered his resignation later in the year, but it was long before the First Consul would accept it. From 18o1 he lived in retirement with his family, employing himself chiefly in scientific pursuits. As a senator he consistently opposed the increasing monarchism of Napoleon, who, however, gave him in 1809 a pension and commissioned him to write a work on fortification for the school of Metz. In these years he had published De la correlation des figures de geometrie (18o1), Geometrie de position (1803), and Principes f ondamentaux de l'equilibre et du mouve ment (1803), all of which were translated into German.
His great work on fortification appeared at Paris in 1810 (De la defense de places fortes), and was translated for the use of almost every army in Europe. He took Montalembert as his groundwork. Without sharing Montalembert's antipathy to the bastioned trace, and his predilection for high masonry caponiers, he followed out the principle of retarding the development of the attack, and provided for the most active defence. To facilitate sorties in great force he did away with a counterscarp wall, pro viding instead a long gentle slope from the bottom of the ditch to the crest of the glacis. This, he imagined, would compel an assailant to maintain large forces in the advanced trenches, which he proposed to attack by vertical fire from mortars. Along the front of his fortress was built a heavy detached wall, loop-holed for fire, and sufficiently high to be a most formidable obstacle. This "Carnot wall," and, in general, Carnot's principle of active defence, played a great part in the rise of modern fortification.
He did not seek employment in the field in the aggressive wars of Napoleon, remaining a sincere republican, but in 1814, when France itself was once more in danger, Carnot at once offered his services. He was made a general of division, and Napoleon sent him to the important fortress of Antwerp as governor. His de fence of that place was one of the most brilliant episodes of the campaign of 1814. He joined Napoleon during the Hundred Days, and was made minister of the interior, the office carrying with it the dignity of count, and on June 2, he was made a peer of France. On the second Restoration he was proscribed. He lived thenceforward in Magdeburg, and died there on Aug. 2, 1823. His remains were solemnly removed to the Pantheon in 1889. Long before this, in 1836, Antwerp had erected a statue to its defender of 1814. In 1837 Arago pronounced his eloge before the Academie des sciences. The memory of his military career is preserved in the title, given to him in the Assembly, of "The organizer of victory." de B ... , Vie privee, politique, et morale de L.N.M. Carnot (1816); Serieys, Carnot, sa vie politique et privee (1816) ; Mandar, Notice biographique sur le general Carnot, etc. (1818) ; W. Korte, Das Leben L.N.M. Carnots (Leipzig, 182o) ; P. F. Tissot, Memoires historiques et militaires sur Carnot (1824) ; Arago, Biographie de Carnot (185o) ; Hippol 'te Carnot, Memoires sur Carnot (1861-63, new ed., 1907) ; C. Remond, Notice biographique sur le grand Carnot (Dijon, 188o) ; A. Picaud, Carnot, l'organisateur de la victoire (1885 and 1887) ; A. Burdeau, Une Famille de patriotes (1888) ; L. Hennet, Lazare Carnot (1888) ; G. Hubbard, Une Famille republicaine (1888) ; M. Dreyfous, Les Trois Carnot (1888) ; M. Bonnal, Carnot, d'apres les archives, etc. (1888) ; Memoir by E. Charavaray in La Grande Encyclopodie; C. Mathiot, Pour Vaincre, Vie, opinions, et pensees de L. Carnot (1916). The Correspondance generale de Carnot has been edited by Charavaray (1892) .