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 defence of that place was one of the most brilliant episodes of the campaign of 1814. On his return to Paris he addressed a political memoir to the restored king of France, which aroused much attention both in France and abroad. 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 the 2nd of June he was made a peer of France. On the second Restoration he was proscribed. He lived thenceforward in Magdeburg, occupying himself still with science. But his health rapidly declined, and he died at Magdeburg on the 2nd of August 1823. His remains were solemnly removed to the Panthéon in 1889. Long before this, in 1836, Antwerp had erected a statue to its defender of 1814. In 1837 Arago pronounced his éloge before the Académie des Sciences. The sincerity of his patriotism and his political convictions was proved in 1801-1804 and in 1814. The memory of his military career is preserved in the title, given to him in the Assembly, of “The organizer of victory.” His sons, Sadi and L. Hippolyte, are separately noticed.
Authorities.—Baron de B..., Vie privée, politique, et morale de L.N.M. Carnot (Paris, 1816); Sérieys, Carnot, sa vie politique et privée (Paris, 1816); Mandar, Notice biographique sur le général Carnot, &c. (Paris, 1818); W. Körte, Das Leben L.N.M. Carnots (Leipzig, 1820); P.F. Tissot, Mémoires historiques et militaires sur Carnot (Paris, 1824); Arago, Biographie de Carnot (Paris, 1850); Hippolyte Carnot, Mémoires sur Carnot (Paris, 1863); C. Rémond, Notice biographique sur le grand Carnot (Dijon 1880); A. Picaud, Carnot, l’organisateur de la victoire (Paris, 1885 and 1887); A. Burdeau, Une Famille de patriotes (Paris, 1888); L. Hennet, Lazare Carnot (Paris, 1888); G. Hubbard, Une Famille républicaine (Paris, 1888); M. Dreyfous, Les Trois Carnot (Paris, 1888); M. Bonnal, Carnot, d’après les archives, &c. (Paris, 1888); and memoir by E. Charavaray in La Grande Encyclopédie.
CARNOT, MARIE FRANÇOIS SADI (1837-1894), fourth president of the third French Republic, son of L. Hippolyte Carnot, was born at Limoges on the 11th of August 1837. He was educated as a civil engineer, and after having highly distinguished himself at the École Polytechnique and the École des Ponts et Chaussées, obtained an appointment in the public service. His hereditary republicanism recommended him to the government of national defence, by which he was entrusted in 1870 with the task of organizing resistance in the departments of the Eure, Calvados and Seine Inférieure, and made prefect of the last named in January 1871. In the following month he was elected to the National Assembly by the department Côte d’Or. In August 1878 he was appointed secretary to the minister of public works. In September 1880 he became minister, and again in April 1885, passing almost immediately to the ministry of finance, which he held under both the Ferry and the Freycinet administrations until December 1886. When the Wilson scandals occasioned the downfall of Grévy in December 1887, Carnot’s high character for integrity marked him out as a candidate for the presidency, and he obtained the support of Clémenceau and of all those who objected to the candidatures of men who have been more active in the political arena, so that he was elected by 616 votes out of 827. He assumed office at a critical period, when the republic was all but openly attacked by General Boulanger. President Carnot’s ostensible part during this agitation was mainly confined to augmenting his popularity by well-timed appearances on public occasions, which gained credit for the presidency and the republic. When early in 1889, Boulanger was finally driven into exile, it fell to President Carnot’s lot to appear at the head of the state on two occasions of especial interest, the celebration of the centenary of 1789 and the opening of the Paris Exhibition of that year. The perfect success of both was regarded, not unreasonably, as a popular ratification of the republic, and though continually harassed by the formation and dissolution of ephemeral ministries, by socialist outbreaks, and the beginnings of anti-Semitism, Carnot had but one serious crisis to surmount, the Panama scandals of 1892, which, if they greatly damaged the prestige of the state, increased the respect felt for its head, against whose integrity none could breathe a word. Carnot seemed to be arriving at the zenith of popularity, when on the 24th of June 1894, after delivering at a public banquet at Lyons a speech in which he appeared to imply that he nevertheless would not seek re-election, he was stabbed by an Italian anarchist named Caserio and expired almost immediately. The horror and grief excited by this tragedy were boundless, and the president was honoured with a splendid funeral in the Panthéon, Paris.
His son, François Carnot, was first elected deputy for the Cote d’Or in 1902.
See E. Zevort, Histoire de la Troisième République, tome iv., “La Présidence de Carnot” (Paris, 1901).
CARNOT, SADI NICOLAS LÉONHARD (1796-1832), French physicist, elder son of L.N.M. Carnot, was born at Paris on the 1st of June 1796. He was admitted to the École Polytechnique in 1812, and late in 1814 he left with a commission in the Engineers and with prospects of rapid advancement in his profession. But Waterloo and the Restoration led to a second and final proscription of his father; and though not himself cashiered, Sadi was purposely told off for the merest drudgeries of his service. Disgusted with an employment which afforded him neither leisure for original work nor opportunities for acquiring scientific instruction, he presented himself in 1819 at the examination for admission to the staff corps (état-major) and obtained a lieutenancy. He then devoted himself with astonishing ardour to mathematics, chemistry, natural history, technology and even political economy. He was an enthusiast in music and other fine arts; and he habitually practised as an amusement, while deeply studying in theory, all sorts of athletic sports, including swimming and fencing. He became captain in the Engineers in 1827, but left the service altogether in the following year. His naturally feeble constitution, further weakened by excessive study, broke down finally in 1832. An attack of scarlatina led to brain fever, and he had scarcely recovered when he fell a victim to cholera, of which he died in Paris on the 24th of August 1832. He was one of the most original and profound thinkers who have ever devoted themselves to science. The only work he published was his Réflexions sur la puissance motrice du feu et sur les machines propres à développer cette puissance (Paris, 1824). This contains but a fragment of his scientific discoveries, but it is sufficient to put him in the very foremost rank, though its full value was not recognized until pointed out by Lord Kelvin in 1848 and 1849. Fortunately his manuscripts had been preserved, and extracts were appended to a reprint of his Puissance motrice by his brother, L.H. Carnot, in 1878. These show that he had not only realized for himself the true nature of heat, but had noted down for trial many of the best modern methods of finding its mechanical equivalent, such as those of J.P. Joule with the perforated piston and with the friction of water and mercury. Lord Kelvin’s experiment with a current of gas forced through a porous plug is also given. “Carnot’s principle” is fundamental in the theory of thermodynamics (q.v.).
CARNOUSTIE, a police burgh and watering-place of Forfarshire, Scotland. Pop. (1901) 5204. It lies on the North Sea, 10¾ m. E.N.E. of Dundee by the North British railway. Bathing and golfing are good. Barry Links, a triangular sandy track occupying the south-eastern corner of the shire, are used as a camping and manoeuvring ground for the artillery and infantry forces of the district, and occasionally of Scotland. Its most extreme point is called Buddon Ness, off which are the dangerous shoals locally known as the Roaring Lion, in consequence of the deep boom of the waves. On the Ness two lighthouses have been built at different levels, the lights of which are visible at 13 and 16 m.