Why at this time the name of Pitt should have driven the Parisian legislators half frantic is not easy to see. Up to that time the exploits of the small British force at Famars and Valenciennes had been no more than creditable; and it was not till the end of the month that the news of the entry of Admiral Hood's fleet into Toulon threw Paris into a frenzy. The decree of 9th August therefore has merely a psychological interest. When tyrants thundered at the gates of the Republic, France needed some names the mere sound of which sufficed to drive her sons to arms. In 1792 it was Brunswick or Condé. When they ceased to be effective, the populace found others first in Coburg and finally in Pitt. Other names waxed and waned; but that of the son of Chatham stood fixed in a dull haze of hatred. Thus, by a singular irony, the very man who in 1786 had branded with folly those Englishmen who declared France to be our natural enemy, was now by her banned as the enemy of the human race. And such he remains for the great majority of Frenchmen. The hasty and fortuitous phrase of Couthon, which was designed to save him from the assassin's knife, will doubtless be the permanent catchword, irremovable by research and explanation.
The ravings of the French Convention would soon have ended, had not a great organizer now appeared. On 17th August 1793 Carnot entered the Committee of Public Safety, and thenceforth wielded its limitless powers for purposes of national defence. He was an officer of engineers, and had eagerly studied the principles of strategy. Throwing himself with ardour into the Revolution, he became a member of the National Assembly, and now was charged with the supervision of the War Department. At the War Committee he had the help of officers scarcely less able. Among them Mallet du Pan, in an interesting survey of French administrators, names D'Arçon as largely contributing to the French triumphs at Dunkirk and Maubeuge. He calls him a soul on fire and full of resource.[227] But the brain and will of this Committee was Carnot. His application to work for some twelve or fourteen hours a day, his hold on masses of details, and his burning patriotism, enabled him to inflame, control, and energize Frenchmen until they became a nation in arms. Moreover, Carnot had the invaluable gift of selecting the best commanders. True, the Frenchman was not hampered by a monarch who regarded the army as his own, nor by clogging claims of seniority. The "organizer of victory" had before him a clear field and no favour.