Lazare Carnot

Lazare Nicolas Marguerite, Comte Carnot
Claude Carnot-Feulin
Personal details
Born	(1753-05-13)13 May 1753 Kingdom of the French  First French Republic  First French Empire
Branch/service	Army
Years of service	1771–1815
Rank	Divisional general

Lazare Nicolas Marguerite, Comte Carnot (French pronunciation:

Carnot was elected to the National Convention in 1792, and a year later he became a member of the Committee of Public Safety, where he directed the French war effort as one of the Ministers of War during the War of the First Coalition. He oversaw the reorganization of the army, imposed discipline, and significantly expanded the French force through the imposition of mass conscription. Credited with France's renewed military success from 1793 to 1794, Carnot came to be known as the "Organizer of Victory".

Increasingly disillusioned with the radical politics of the

In addition to his political career, Carnot was also an eminent mathematician. His 1803 Géométrie de position is considered a pioneering work in the field of projective geometry. He is also remembered for developing the Carnot wall, a system of fortification that became widely employed in continental Europe during the 19th century.

Education and early life

Carnot was born on 13 May 1753 in the village of

Impressed with Lazare's work as a scholar, the duc d'Aumont [fr] (Marquis de Nolay) recommended a military career for the youngster. Carnot was soon sent by his father to the Aumont residence to further his education. Here, he was enrolled in M. de Longpré's pension school in 1770 until he was ready to enter one of two prestigious engineering and artillery schools in Paris. A year later, in February 1771, he was ranked the third highest among twelve who were chosen out of his class of more than one hundred who took the entrance exams. It was at this point when he entered the École royale du génie de Mézières, appointed as a second lieutenant. Studies at the Mézières included geometry, mechanics, geometrical designing, geography, hydraulics and material preparation. On 1 January 1773 he graduated the school, ranked as a first lieutenant. He was eighteen years old.^[1]

Carnot obtained a commission as a lieutenant in Louis Joseph, Prince of Condé's engineer corps. At this moment, he made a name for himself both in the line of (physics) theoretical engineering and in his work in the field of fortifications. While in the army, stationed in Calais, Cherbourg and Béthune, he continued his study of mathematics. In December 1783, he received a promotion to the rank of captain.^[2]

In 1784 he published his first work Essay on Machines, which contained a statement that foreshadowed the principle of energy as applied to a falling weight, and the earliest proof that

In September 1791 he became a delegate for Pas-de-Calais to the Legislature. While a member of the Legislative Assembly, Carnot was elected to the Committee of Public Instruction. He believed that all citizens should be educated. As a member of that committee, he wrote a series of reforms for the teaching and educational systems, but they were not implemented due to the violent social and economic climate of the Revolution.

After the Legislative Assembly was dissolved, Carnot was elected to the National Convention in September 1792. He spent the last few months of 1792 on a mission to Bayonne, organizing the military defense effort in an attempt to ward off any possible attacks from Spain. Upon returning to Paris, Carnot voted for the death of Louis XVI, although he had been absent for the debates surrounding his trial.^[4] By mid-February Carnot proposed that annexation be undertaken on behalf of French interests whether or not the people to be annexed so wished.^[5] Following the king's veto of the Assembly's efforts to suppress nonjuring priests on 27 May, on a proposal of Carnot and Servan in the Assembly to raise a permanent militia of volunteers on 8 June,^[6] and the reinstatement of Brissotin ministers dismissed on 18 June, the monarchy faced an abortive demonstration of 20 June.^[7]

On 14 August 1793 Carnot was elected to the Committee of Public Safety, where he took charge of the military situation as one of the Ministers of War.^[4] He was friendly with Johan Valckenaer who tried to hasten the invasion of the Dutch Republic.

With the establishment of the

The creation of the French Revolutionary Army was largely due to his powers of organization and enforcing discipline. In order to raise more troops for the war, Carnot introduced conscription: the levée en masse approved by the National Convention was able to raise France's army from 645,000 troops in mid-1793 to 1,500,000 in September 1794. He was the first to execute the modern waging of war with mass armies and strategic planning realized by the Revolution. As a military engineer, Carnot favored fortresses and defensive strategies.^[8] He developed innovative defensive designs for forts, including the Carnot wall, named after him. However, with the constant invasions he decided to take his strategic planning to an offensive strike. From his intellect sprang the maneuvers and organization that turned the tides of war from 1793 to 1794.^[9]

The basic idea was to have a massive army separated into several units that could move more quickly than the enemy and attack from the flanks rather than head on, which had led to resounding defeats before Carnot was elected to the Committee of Public Safety. This tactic was extremely successful against the more traditional tactics of existing European armies. It was his initiative to train the conscripts in the art of war and to place new recruits with experienced soldiers rather than having a massive volunteer army without any real idea of how to wage battle.

Once the problem of troop numbers had been solved, Carnot turned his administrative skills to the supplies that this massive army would need. Many of the munitions and supplies were in short supply: copper was lacking for guns so he ordered church bells seized in order to melt them down; saltpeter was lacking and he called chemistry to his aid; leather for boots was scarce so he demanded and secured new methods for tanning. He quickly organized the army and helped to turn the tide of the war. It added significantly to discontent with the course of the Revolution in still

While being an active member of the Committee of Public Safety in 1794, tensions between Carnot and Robespierre began to rise massively. During his time on the committee, which was heavily radical, Carnot signed a total of 43 decrees and drafted 18 of them. Most of them dealt with military tactics and education.[11] Despite leaning on Jacobin beliefs, Carnot was considered the "conservative" of his half. He was not an official member of the radical group and therefore took on his own independent beliefs in regards to many issues.^[12] One of these issues included Robespierre's proposal on an egalitarian social system with which he feverishly disagreed.^[13]

Although he had taken no steps to oppose the

In 1795, Carnot appointed Napoleon Bonaparte as general in chief of the Army of Italy. He is known to be the only member of the Directory to have supported Napoleon during this time.^[14]

In 1800 Bonaparte appointed Carnot as

during the reign of Louis XVIII.

Retirement and legacy

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In 1803 Carnot produced his Géométrie de position. This work deals with projective rather than descriptive geometry. Carnot is responsible for initiating the use of cross-ratios: "He was the first to introduce the cross (anharmonic) ratio of four points of a line taking account of its sign, thereby sharpening

The Borda–Carnot equation in fluid dynamics and several theorems in geometry are named after him: one that describes a property of the incircle and the circumcircle of triangle, one that describes a relation between triangles and conic sections and one that describes a property of certain perpendiculars on triangle sides.

Published in 1810 under the title "Traité de la Défense des Places Fortes", his ideas on fortification were further developed in the third edition which was published in 1812. An English translation, "A Treatise on the Defence of Fortified Places" was published in 1814. Although few of his proposals were accepted by mainstream engineers, the Carnot wall, a detached wall at the foot of the escarp, became a common feature in fortifications built in the mid-19th century.^[16]

He lived in

Carnot survived all the phases of the French Revolution, from its beginnings in 1789 until the fall of Napoleon in 1815. On the social and political front, Carnot was the author of many reforms sought to improve the country. One of these was the proposal for compulsory public education for all citizens. He also penned a proposal for the new Constitution which included the "Declaration of the Duties of the Citizens" that held that there should be not only education but military service for all citizens of France between the ages of twenty and twenty-five.

Work in mathematics and theoretical engineering

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• 1801: De la Corrélation des Figures de Géométrie, containing several theorems in geometry now known as Carnot's theorem.
• Principes fondamentaux de l'équilibre et du mouvement (in French). Paris: Jean-François-Pierre Deterville. 1803.
• 1832: Reflexions on the Metaphysical Principles of the Infinitesimal Analysis

He also published essays about engineering theory. Essai sur les machines en général won honorable mention from the Academie sur Science of Paris in 1780. It was revised and published in 1783. In this he outlined a mathematical theory of power transmission in mechanical systems. His essay Principes fondamentaux de l'équilibre et du mouvement 1803 was a further revision and expansion of the earlier work.

Carnot's son, Nicolas, was influenced by his father's work when he undertook his research into the thermal efficiency of steam engines.

Carnot's name is one of the 72 names inscribed on the Eiffel Tower.

Famous offspring

• His son
  heat engines (see Carnot cycle
  ).
• His second son
  Lazare Hippolyte Carnot
  was a French statesman.
• His grandson
  President of the French Republic
  from 1887 until his assassination in 1894.

• 1796 - Exploits des Fran, cais depuis le 22 Fructidor an 1, jusqu'au 15 Pluviose an III, 8 sept. 1793 - 3 febr. 1795
• 1798 - Réponse de L.N.M. Carnot ... au rapport fait sur la conjuration du 18 fructidor, au conseil des cinq-cents
• 1799 - Second memoire de Carnot
• 1810 - De la défense des places fortes, ouvrage composé par ordre de Sa Majesté impériale et royale pour l'instruction des élèves du corps du Génie
• 1814 - Mémoire adressé au roi, en juillet 1814
• 1814 - (translated by Baron de Montalembert) A Treatise on the Defence of Fortified Places
• 1823 - Mémoire sur la fortification primitive : pour servir de suite au Traité de la défense des places fortes
• 1888 - Carnot : d'après les archives nationales, le dépot de la guerre et les séances de la convention
• 1892-1897 - Correspondance générale de Carnot. Publiee avec des notes historiques et biographiques. Tome I. Aout 1792 - Mars 1793; Tome II. Mars - Aout 1793; Tome III. Aout - Octobre 1793

Notes

References

• James R. Arnold, The Aftermath of the French Revolution. Minneapolis, MN: Twenty-First Century Books (2009)
• W. W. Rouse Ball, A Short Account of the History of Mathematics (4th Edition, 1908)
• Brett-James, Anthony. The Hundred Days; Napoleon's Last Campaign from Eye-Witness Accounts. London: McMillan (1964)
• Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Carnot, Lazare Nicolas Marguerite" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 5 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 376–377.
• Gagnon, Paul A. France Since 1789. New York: Harper & Row (1964)
• Furet, François and Mona Ozouf, eds. A Critical Dictionary of the French Revolution (1989), pp. 197–203
• ISBN 0-691-08082-8
  (1971)
• David Hamilton-Williams. Waterloo: New Perspectives. The Great Battle Reappraised. New York: John Wiley & Sons (1994)
• Daniel P. Resnick. The White Terror and the Political Reaction After Waterloo. Cambridge: Harvard University Press (1966)
• Carnot, Lazare Nicolas Marguerite. (2011). In L. Rodger, & J. Bakewell, Chambers Biographical Dictionary (9th ed.). London, UK: Chambers Harrap.
• Dupre, Huntley (1892). Lazare Carnot, Republic Patriot. Oxford, O: The Mississippi Valley Press. pp. 5–20.
• Guillot, F.M. Le Jacobinisme Réfuté : Ou, Observations Critiques Sur Le Mémoire De M. Carnot, Adressé Au Roi En 1814. Paris: C.FF Paris, 1815. 85. Web
• Soboul, Albert (28 March 2011). "Lazare Carnot". Britannica.
• Carnot, Lazare Nicolas Marguerite. (2016). In P. Lagasse, & Columbia University, The Columbia encyclopedia (6th ed.). New York, NY: Columbia University Press.
• Carnot, Lazare Nicolas Marguerite. (2011). In L. Rodger, & J. Bakewell, Chambers Biographical Dictionary (9th ed.). London, UK: Chambers Harrap.
• Great Engineers and Pioneers in Technology Vol1 Ed Roland Turner and Steven Goulden St Martins Press Inc NY 1981

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to Lazare Carnot.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Lazare Carnot.

• O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Lazare Carnot", MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive, University of St Andrews
• MathPages – Carnot, Organizer of Transversals
• Lazare Carnot - Œuvres complètes Gallica-Math

Political offices
Preceded by Louis Alexandre Berthier	Ministers of War 2 April 1800 – 8 October 1800	Succeeded by Louis Alexandre Berthier
Preceded by François Xavier de Montesquiou-Fezensac	Ministers of Interior 20 March 1815 – 22 June 1815	Succeeded by Claude Carnot-Feulin