The strong
measures which the eighty decided and clear-sighted deputies propose,
are weakened or suspended by the precautions of the three hundred
others, short-sighted, unreliable or timid.[63] They dare not even
avail themselves of their legal arms:
* annul the military division of the interior,
* suppress Augereau's commission,
* and break the sword presented at their throats by the three
conspiring Directors.
In the Directory, they have only passive or neutral allies,
Barth?l?my, who had rather be assassinated than murder, Carnot, the
servant of his legal pass-word, fearing to risk his Republic, and,
moreover, calling to mind that he had voted for the King's death.
Among the "Five Hundred" and the "Ancients," Thibaudeau and Tron?on-
Ducoudray, the two leaders "du ventre," arrest the arms of Pichegru
and other energetic men, prevent them from striking, allow them only
to ward off the blow, and always too late. Three days after the 10th
of Fructidor, when, as everybody knew and saw, the final blow was to
be struck, the eighty deputies, who change their quarters so as not to
be seized in their beds, cannot yet make up their minds to take the
offensive.
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