Editing Nicolas Léonard Sadi Carnot (section)

=== Views and character ===
[[File:Carnot Despoix 1830.jpg|thumb|right|185px|Drawing of Sadi Carnot by artist Despoix, Paris, 1830.  The original is now in the [[French Academy of Sciences]], Paris.]]

Carnot was interested in [[political economy]].  His political orientation was [[Liberalism|liberal]], but he seems to have preferred the more interventionist doctrines of [[Jean de Sismondi]] to the ''[[laissez-faire]]'' policies advocated by [[classical liberalism|classical liberal]] economists like Say and [[David Ricardo]].<ref>{{Harvnb|Fox|2012|p=418}}</ref>  Out of Carnot's private writings on economics only some fragmentary notes survive.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fox|2012|pp=426–427}}</ref>

Carnot initially welcomed the [[July Revolution]] of 1830, which ended the Bourbonic regime under [[Charles X of France|Charles X]] and established a new [[constitutional monarchy]] under "Citizen King" [[Louis Philippe I|Louis Philippe]].<ref>{{Harvnb|Carnot|1890|pp=32}}</ref>  According to his brother Hippolyte, there was some discussion among leaders of the new regime of incorporating Sadi to the [[Chamber of Peers (France)|Chamber of Peers]], as he could be considered to have inherited the [[Nobility of the First French Empire|Imperial title]] of "Count Carnot" that Napoleon had bestowed on his father Lazare in 1815.  Nothing came of this, however, perhaps because Sadi's [[Republicanism|republican]] convictions prevented him from accepting a hereditary distinction.<ref>{{Harvnb|Wilson|1981|p=145}}</ref>

According to recollections published long after Sadi's death by his brother Hippolyte, Sadi was an avid reader of [[Blaise Pascal]], [[Molière]] and [[Jean de La Fontaine]].<ref>{{Harvnb|Carnot|1890|p=28}}</ref>  Hippolyte recalled that Sadi was a [[Philosophical theism|philosophical theist]] who believed in divine causality but not in divine punishment.  Carnot wrote in his private papers that "what to an ignorant man is chance, cannot be chance to one better instructed".  He was critical of established religion, but spoke in favor of "the belief in an all-powerful Being, who loves us and watches over us."<ref>{{Harvnb|Carnot|1890|pp=215–217}}</ref>

Hippolyte also described his brother as a talented [[violin]] player, interested principally in the music of [[Jean-Baptiste Lully]] and [[Giovanni Battista Viotti]], who also cultivated gymnastics, fencing, swimming, dancing, and skating.<ref>{{Harvnb|Carnot|1890|pp=28–29}}</ref>  According to historian of science James F. Challey, "although sensitive and perceptive", Carnot "appeared extremely introverted, even aloof, to all but a few close friends."<ref>{{Harvnb|Challey|1981|p=80}}</ref>  This may help explain why Carnot's work failed to make any significant impression within either the scientific or the engineering community during his lifetime.