It was not Tamisier who was killing them—­it was Oudinot.

M. de Dampierre did not perceive that he cried “Silence!” to history.

And then without even reckoning the fatal remembrance which at such a moment would have crushed a man endowed in the highest degree with great military qualities, General Oudinot, in other respects an excellent officer, and a worthy son of his brave father, possessed none of those striking qualities which in the critical hour of revolution stir the soldier and carry with them the people.  At that instant to win back an army of a hundred thousand men, to withdraw the balls from the cannons’ mouths, to find beneath the wine poured out to the Praetorians the true soul of the French soldier half drowned and nearly dead, to tear the flag from the coup d’etat and restore it to the Law, to surround the Assembly with thunders and lightnings, it would have needed one of those men who exist no longer; it would have needed the firm hand, the calm oratory, the cold and searching glance of Desaix, that French Phocion; it would have needed the huge shoulders, the commanding stature, the thundering voice, the abusive, insolent, cynical, gay, and sublime eloquence of Kleber, that military Mirabeau.  Desaix, the countenance of a just man, or Kleber, the face of the lion!  General Oudinot, little, awkward, embarrassed, with an indecisive and dull gaze, red cheeks, low forehead, with grizzled and lank hair, polite tone of voice, a humble smile, without oratory, without gesture, without power, brave before the enemy, timid before the first comer, having assuredly the bearing of a soldier, but having also the bearing of a priest; he caused the mind to hesitate between the sword and the taper; he had in his eyes a sort of “Amen!”

He had the best intentions in the world, but what could he do?  Alone, without prestige, without true glory, without personal authority, and dragging Rome after him!  He felt all this himself, and he was as it were paralyzed by it.  As soon as they had appointed him he got upon a chair and thanked the Assembly, doubtless with a firm heart, but with hesitating speech.  When the little fair-haired officer dared to look him in the face and insult him, he, holding the sword of the people, he, General of the sovereign Assembly, he only knew how to stammer out such wretched phrases as these, “I have just declared to you that we are unable, ‘unless compelled and constrained,’ to obey the order which prohibits us from remaining assembled together.”  He spoke of obeying, he who ought to command.  They had girded him with his scarf, and it seemed to make him uncomfortable.  He inclined his head alternately first to one shoulder and then to the other; he held his hat and cane in his hand, he had a benevolent aspect.  A Legitimist member muttered in a low voice to his neighbor, “One might imagine he was a bailiff speechifying at a wedding.”  And his neighbor, a Legitimist also, replied, “He reminds me of the Duc d’Angouleme.”