Prieur's business is to see that biscuits, brandy, clothes, shoes,
gunpowder and arms are manufactured.[35]
Jean Bon, that vessels are equipped and crews drilled.
Carnot, to draw up campaign plans and direct the march of armies: the
dispatch of so many bags of grain during the coming fortnight to this
or that town, or warehouse in this or that district; the making up of
so many weekly rations, to be deported during the month to certain
places on the frontier; the transformation of so many fishermen into
artillerymen or marines, and to set afloat so many vessels in three
months; to expedite certain Corps of Cavalry, infantry and artillery,
so as to arrive by such and such roads at this or that pass -
These are precise combinations which purge the brain of dogmatic
phrases, which force revolutionary jargon into the background and keep
a man sensible and practical; and all the more because three of them,
Jean Bon, former captain of a merchantman, Prieur and Carnot,
engineering officers, are professional men and go to the front to put
their shoulders to the wheel on the spot. Jean Bon, always visiting
the coasts, goes on board a vessel of the fleet leaving Brest to save
the great American convoy; Carnot, at Watignies, orders Jourdan to
make a decisive move, and, shouldering his musket, marches along with
the attacking column.
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