FOOTNOTE:[13]"The wall walling Paris, renders Paris wailing."
[13]"The wall walling Paris, renders Paris wailing."
[13]"The wall walling Paris, renders Paris wailing."
In the month of April, 1791, Bailly perceived that his influence over the Parisian population was decreasing. The king had announced that he should depart on the 18th, and would remain some days at St. Cloud. The state of his health was the ostensible cause of his departure. Some religious scruples were probably the real cause; the holy week was approaching, and the king would have no communications with the ecclesiastics sworn in for his parish. Bailly was not discomposed at this projected journey; he regarded it even with satisfaction. Foreign courts, said our colleague, looked upon him as a prisoner. The sanction he gives to various decrees, appears to them extorted by violence; the visit of Louis XVI. to Saint Cloud will dissipate all these false reports. Bailly therefore concerted measures with La Fayette for the departure of the royal family; but the inhabitants of Paris, less confiding than their mayor, already saw the king escaping from St. Cloud, and seeking refuge amidst foreign armies. They therefore rushed to the Tuileries, and notwithstanding all the efforts of Bailly and his colleague, the court carriages could not advance a step. The king and queen therefore, after waiting for an hour and a half in their carriage, reascended into the palace.
To remain in power after such a check, was giving to the country the most admirable proof of devotion.
In the night of the 20th to the 21st of June, 1791, the king quitted the Tuileries. This flight, so fatal to the monarchy, irretrievably destroyed the ascendency that Bailly had exercised over the capital. The populace usually judges from the event. The king, they said, with the queen and their two children, were freely allowed to go out of the palace. The Mayor of Paris was their accomplice, for he has the means of knowing every thing; otherwise he might be accused of carelessness, or of the most culpable negligence.
These attacks were not only echoed in the shops, in the streets, but also in the strongly organized clubs. The Mayor answered in a peremptory manner, but without entirely effacing the first impression. During several days after the king's flight, both Bailly and La Fayette were in personal danger. The National Assembly had often to look to their safety.
I have now reached a painful portion of my task, a frightful event, that led finally to Bailly's cruel death; a bloody catastrophe, the relation of which will perhaps oblige me to allow a little blame to hover over some actions of this virtuous citizen, whom thus far it has been my delight to praise without any restriction.
The flight of the king had an immense influence on the progress of our first revolution. It threw into the republican party some considerable political characters who, till then, had hoped to realize the union of a monarchy with democratical principles.
Mirabeau, a short time before his death, having heard this projected flight spoken of, said to Cabanis: "I have defended monarchy to the last; I defend it still, although I think it lost.... But, if the king departs, I will mount the tribune, have the throne declared vacant, and proclaim a Republic."
After the return from Varennes, the project of substituting a republican government for a monarchical government was very seriously discussed by the most moderate members of the National Assembly, and we now know that the Duke de La Rochefoucauld and Dupont (de Némours) for example, were decidedly in favour of a republic. But it was chiefly in the clubs that the idea of such a radical change had struck root. When the Commission of the National Assembly had expressed itself, through M. Muguet, at the sitting of the 13th of July, 1791, against the forfeiture of Louis XVI., there was a great fermentation in Paris. Some agents of the Cordeliers (Shoemakers') Club were the first to ask for signatures to a petition on the 14th of July, against the proposed decision. The Assembly refused to read and even to receive it. On the motion of Laclos, the club of the Jacobins got up another. This, after undergoing some important modifications, was to be signed on the 17th on the Champ de Mars, on the altar of their country. These projects were discussed openly, in full daylight. The National Assembly deemed them anarchical. On the 16th of July it called to its bar the municipality of Paris, enjoining it to have recourse to force, if requisite, to repress any culpable movements.
The Council of the Commune on the morning of the 17th placarded a proclamation that it had prepared according to the orders of the National Assembly. Some municipal officers went about preceded by a trumpeter, to read it in various public squares. Around the Hotel de Ville, the military arrangements, commanded by La Fayette, led to the expectation of a sanguinary conflict. All at once, on the opening of the sitting of the National Assembly, a report was circulated that two good citizens having dared to tell the people collected around their country's altar, that they must obey the law, had been put to death, and that their heads, stuck upon pikes, were carried through the streets. The news of this attack excited the indignation of all the deputies, and under this impression, Alexander Lameth, then President of the Assembly, of his own accord transmitted to Bailly very severe new orders, a circumstance which, though only saiden passant, has been but recently known.
The municipal body, as soon as it was informed, about eleven o'clock, of the two assassinations, deputed three of its members, furnished with full powers, to reëstablish order. Strong detachments accompanied the municipal officers. About two o'clock it was reported that stones had been thrown at the National Guard. The Municipal Council instantly had martial law proclaimed on the Place de Grève, and the red flag suspended from the principal window of the Hôtel de Ville. At half-past five o'clock, just when the municipal body was about to start for the Champ de Mars, the three councillors, who had been sent in the morning to the scene of disorder, returned, accompanied by a deputation of twelve persons, taken from among the petitioners. The explanations given on various sides occasioned a new deliberation of the Council. The first decision was maintained, and at six o'clock the municipality began its march with the red flag, three pieces of cannon, and numerous detachments of the National Guard.
Bailly, as chief of the municipality, found himself at this time in one of those solemn and perilous situations, in which a man becomes responsible in the eyes of a whole nation, in the eyes of posterity, for the inconsiderate or even culpable actions of the passionate multitude that surrounds him, but which he scarcely knows, and over which he has little or no influence.
The National Guard, in that early epoch of the revolution, was very troublesome to lead and to rule. Insubordination appeared to be the rule in its ranks; and hierarchical obedience a very rare exception. My remark may perhaps appear severe: well, Gentlemen, read the contemporary writings, Grimm's Correspondence, for example, and you will see, under date of November 1790, a dismissed captain replying to the regrets of his company in the following style: "Console yourselves, my companions, I shall not quit you; only, henceforward I shall be a simple fusilier; if you see me resolved to be no longer your chief, it is because I am content to command in my turn."
It is allowable besides to suppose that the National Guard of 1791 was deficient, in the presence of such crowds, of that patience, that clemency, of which the French troops of the line have often given such perfect examples. It was not aware that, in a large city, crowds are chiefly composed of the unemployed and the idly curious.
It was half-past seven o'clock when the municipal body arrived at the Champ de Mars. Immediately some individuals placed on the glacis exclaimed: "Down with the red flag! down with the bayonettes!" and threw some stones. There was even a gun fired. A volley was fired in the air to frighten them; but the cries soon recommenced; again some stones were thrown; then only the fatal fusillade of the National Guard began!
These, Gentlemen, are the deplorable events of the Champ de Mars, faithfully analyzed from the relation that Bailly himself gave of the 18th July to the Constituent Assembly. This recital, the truth of which no one assuredly will question any more than myself, labours under some involuntary but very serious omissions. I will indicate them, when the march of events leads us, in following our unfortunate colleague, to the revolutionary tribunal.
I resume the biography of Bailly at the time when he quitted the Hôtel de Ville after a magistracy of about two years.
On the 12th November, 1791, Bailly convoked the Council of the Commune, rendered an account of his administration, solemnly entreated those who thought themselves entitled to complain of him, to say so without reserve; so resolved was he to bow to any legitimate complaints; installed his successor Pétion, and retired. This separation did not lead to any of those heartfelt demonstrations from the co-labourers of the late Mayor, which are the true and the sweetest recompense to a good man.
I have sought for the hidden cause of such a constant and undisguised hostility towards the first Mayor of Paris. I asked myself first, whether the magistrate's manners had possibly excited the susceptibilities of the Eschevins.[14]The answer is decidedly in the negative. Bailly showed in all the relations of life a degree of patience, a suavity, a deference to the opinions of others, that would have soothed the most irascible self-love.
Must we suspect jealousy to have been at work? No, no; the persons who constituted the town-council were too obscure, unless they were mad, to attempt to vie in public consideration and glory with the illustrious author ofthe History of Astronomy, with the philosopher, the writer, the erudite scholar who belonged to our three principal academies, an honour that Fontenelle alone had enjoyed before him.
Let us say it aloud, for such is our conviction, nothing personal excited the evil proceedings, the acts of insubordination with which Bailly had daily to reproach his numerous assistants. It is even presumable, that in his position, any one else would have had to register more numerous and more serious complaints. Let us be truthful: when thearistocracy of the ground-floor, according to the expression of one of the most illustrious members of the French Academy, was called by the revolutionary movements to replace thearistocracy of the first-floor, it became giddy. Have I not, it said, conducted the business of the warehouse, the workshop, the counting-house, &c., with probity and success; why then should I not equally succeed in the management of public affairs? And this swarm of new statesmen were in a hurry to commence work; hence all control was irksome to them, and each wished to be able to say on returning home, "I have framed such or such an act that will tie the hands of faction for ever; I have repressed this or that riot; I have, in short, saved the country by proposing such or such a measure for the public good, and by having it adopted." The pronounIso agreeably tickles the ear of a man lately risen from obscurity.
What the thorough-bred Eschevin, whether new or old, dreads above every thing else, is specialties. He has an insurmountable antipathy towards men, who have in the face of the world gained the honourable titles of historian, geometer, mechanician, astronomer, physician, chemist, or geologist, &c.... His desire, his will, is to speak on every thing. He requires, therefore, colleagues who cannot contradict him.
If the town constructs an edifice, the Eschevin, losing sight of the question, talks away on the aspect of the façades. He declares with the imperturbable assurance inspired by a fact that he had heard speak of whilst on the knees of his nurse, that on a particular side of the future building, the moon, an active agent of destruction, will incessantly corrode the stones of the frontage, the shafts of the columns, and that it will efface in a few years all the projecting ornaments; and hence the fear of the moon's voracity will lead to the upsetting of all the views, the studies, and the well-digested plans of several architects. Place a meteorologist on the council, and, despite the authority of the nurses, a whole scaffolding of gratuitous suppositions will be crumbled to dust by these few categorical and strict words of science; the moon does not exert the action that is attributed to it.
At another time, the Eschevin hurls his anathema at the system of warming by steam. According to him, this diabolical invention is an incessant cause of damp to the wood-work, the furniture, the papers, and the books. The Eschevin fancies, in short, that in this way of warming, torrents of watery vapour enter into the atmosphere of the apartments. Can he love a colleague, I ask, who after having had the cunning patience to let him come to the conclusion of his discourse, informs him that, although vapour, the vehicle of an enormous quantity of latent heat, rapidly conveys this caloric to every floor of the largest edifice, it has never occasion therefore to escape from those impermeable tubes through which the circulation is effected!
Amidst the various labours that are required by every large town, the Eschevin thinks, some one day, that he has discovered an infallible way of revenging himself of specialties. Guided by the light of modern geology, it has been proposed to go with an immense sounding line in hand, to seek in the bowels of the earth the incalculable quantities of water, that from all eternity circulate there without benefiting human nature, to make them spout up to the surface, to distribute them in various directions, in large cities, until then parched, to take advantage of their high temperature, to warm economically the magnificent conservatories of the public gardens, the halls of refuge, the wards of the sick in hospitals, the cells of madmen. But according to the old geology of the Eschevin, promulgated perhaps by his nurse, there is no circulation in subterranean water; at all events, subterranean water cannot be submitted to an ascending force and rise to the surface; its temperature would not differ from that of common well-water. The Eschevin, however, agrees to the expensive works proposed. Those works, he says, will afford no material result; but once for all, such fantastic projects will receive a solemn and rough contradiction, and we shall then be liberated for ever from the odious yoke under which science wants to enslave us.
However, the subterranean water appears. It is true that a clever engineer had to bore down 548 mètres (or 600 yards) to find it; but thence it comes transparent as crystal, pure as if the product of distillation, warmed as physical laws had shown that it would be, more abundant indeed than they had dared to foresee, it shot up thirty-three mètres above the ground.
Do not suppose, Gentlemen, that putting aside wretched views of self-love, the Eschevin would applaud such a result. He shows himself, on the contrary, deeply humiliated. And he will not fail in future to oppose every undertaking that might turn out to the honour of science. Crowds of such incidents occur to the mind. Are we to infer thence, that we ought to be afraid of seeing the administration of a town given up to the stationary, and exclusive spirit of the old Eschevinage—to people who have learnt nothing and studied nothing? Such is not the result of these long reflections. I wished to enable people to foresee the struggle, not the defeat. I even hasten to add, that by the side of the surly, harsh, rude, positive Eschevin, the type of whom, to say the truth, is fortunately becoming rare, an honourable class of citizens exists, who, content with a moderate fortune laboriously acquired, live retired, charm their leisure with study, and magnanimously place themselves, without any interested views, at the service of the community. Everywhere similar auxiliaries fight courageously for truth as soon as they perceive it. Bailly constantly obtained their concurrence; as is proved by some touching testimonies of gratitude and sympathy. As to the counsellors who so often occasioned trouble, confusion, and anarchy in the Hôtel de Ville in the years '89 and '90, I am inclined to blame the virtuous magistrate for having so patiently, so diffidently endured their ridiculous pretensions, their unbearable assumption of power.
From the earliest steps in the important study of nature, it becomes evident that facts unveiled to us in the lapse of centuries, are but a very small fraction, if we compare them with those that still remain to be discovered. Placing ourselves in that point of view, deficiency in diffidence would just be the same as deficiency in judgment. But, by the side of positive diffidence, if I may be allowed the expression, relative diffidence comes in. This is often a delusion; it deceives no one, yet occasions a thousand difficulties. Bailly often confounded them. We may regret, I think, that in many instances, the learned academician disdained to throw in the face of his vain fellow-labourers these words of an ancient philosopher: "When I examine myself, I find I am but a pigmy; when I compare myself, I think I am a giant."
If I were to cover with a veil that which appeared to me susceptible of criticism in the character of Bailly, I should voluntarily weaken the praises that I have bestowed on several acts of his administration. I will not commit this fault, no more than I have done already in alluding to the communications of the mayor with the presuming Eschevins.
I will therefore acknowledge that on several occasions, Bailly, in my opinion, showed himself influenced by a petty susceptibility, if not about his personal prerogatives, yet about those of his station.
I think also that Bailly might be accused of an occasional want of foresight.
Imaginative and sensitive, the philosopher allowed his thoughts to centre too exclusively on the difficulties of the moment. He persuaded himself, from an excess of good-will, that no new storm would follow the one that he had just overcome. After every success, whether great or small, against the intrigues of the court, or prejudices, or anarchy, whether President of the National Assembly or Mayor of Paris, our colleague thought the country saved. Then his joy overflowed; he would have wished to spread it over all the world. It was thus that on the day of the definite reunion of the nobility with the other two orders, the 27th of June, 1789, Bailly going from Versailles to Chaillot, after the close of the session, leaned half his body out of his carriage door, and announced the happy tidings with loud exclamations to all whom he met on the road. At Sèvres, it is from himself that I borrow the anecdote, he did not see without painful surprise that his communication was received with the most complete indifference by a group of soldiers assembled before the barrack door; Bailly laughed much on afterwards learning that this was a party of Swiss soldiers, who did not understand a word he said.
Happy the actors in a great revolution, in whose conduct we find nothing to reprehend until after having entered into so minute an analysis of their public and private conduct.
FOOTNOTE:[14]Eschevinwas a sort of town-councilman, peculiar to Paris and to Rotterdam, acting under a mayor.
[14]Eschevinwas a sort of town-councilman, peculiar to Paris and to Rotterdam, acting under a mayor.
[14]Eschevinwas a sort of town-councilman, peculiar to Paris and to Rotterdam, acting under a mayor.
After having quitted the Mayorality of Paris, Bailly retired to Chaillot, where he hoped again to find happiness in study; but upwards of two years passed amidst the storms of public life had deeply injured his health; it was therefore requisite to obey the advice of physicians, and undertake a journey. About the middle of June, 1792, Bailly quitted the capital, made some excursions in the neighbouring departments, went to Niort to visit his old colleague and friend, M. de Lapparent, and soon after went on far as Nantes, where the due influence of another friend, M. Gelée de Prémion, seemed to promise him protection and tranquillity. Determined to establish himself in this last town, Bailly and his wife took a small lodging in the house of some distinguished people, who could understand and appreciate them. They hoped to live there in peace; but news from Paris soon dissipated this illusion. The Council of the Commune decreed, that the house previously occupied, in consequence of a formal decision, by the Mayor of Paris, and by the public offices of the town, ought to have paid a tax of 6,000 livres, and strange enough, that Bailly was responsible for it. The pretended debt was claimed with harshness. They demanded the payment of it without delay. To free himself Bailly was obliged to sell his library, to abandon to the chances of an auction that multitude of valuable books, from which he had sought out, in the silence of his study, and with such remarkable perseverance, the most recondite secrets of the firmament.
This painful separation was followed by two acts that did not afflict him less.
The central government (then directed, it must be allowed, by the Gironde party) placed Bailly under surveillance. Every eight days the venerable academician was obliged to present himself at the house of the Syndic Procurator of the Departmental Administration of the Lower-Loire, like a vile malefactor, whose every footstep it would be to the interest of society to watch. What was the true motive for such a strange measure? This secret has been buried in a tomb where I shall not allow myself to dig for it.
Though painful to me to say so, the odious assimilation of Bailly to a dangerous criminal had not exhausted the rancour of his enemies. A letter from Roland, the Minister of the Interior, announced very dryly to the unfortunate proscribed man, that the apartments in the Louvre, which his family had occupied for upwards of half a century, had been withdrawn from him. They had even proceeded so far as to furnish a tipstaff with the order to clear the rooms.
A short time before this epoch, Bailly had found himself obliged to sell his house at Chaillot. The old Mayor of Paris then had no longer a hearth or a home in the great city which had been the late scene of his devotion, his solicitude, and his sacrifices. When this reflection occurred to his mind, his eyes filled with tears.
But the grief that Bailly experienced on seeing himself the daily object of odious persecutions, left his patriotic convictions intact. Vainly did they endeavour several times to transform a legitimate hatred towards individuals into an antipathy towards principles. They still remember in Brittany the debate raised, by one of these attempts, between our colleague and a Vendéan physician, Dr. Blin. Never, in the season of his greatest popularity, did the president of the National Assembly express himself with more vivacity; never had he defended our first revolution with more eloquence. Not long since, in the same place, I pointed out to public attention another of our colleagues (Condorcet), who already under the blow of a capital condemnation, devoted his last moments to restore to the light of day the principles of eternal justice, which the fashions and the follies of men had but too much obscured. At a time of weak or interested convictions, and disgraceful capitulations of conscience, those two examples of unchangeable convictions deserved to be remarked. I am happy in having found them in the bosom of the Academy of Sciences.
Tranquillity of mind is not less requisite than vigour of intellect, to those who undertake great works. Thus during his residence at Nantes, Bailly did not even try to add to his numerous scientific or literary productions. This celebrated astronomer passed his time in reading novels. He sometimes said with a bitter smile: "My day has been well occupied; since I got up, I have put myself in a position to give an analysis of the two, or of the three first volumes of the new novel that the reading-room has just received." From time to time these abstractions were of a more elevated tone; he owed them to two young persons, who having reached an advanced age may now be listening to my words. Bailly discoursed with them of Homer, of Plato, of Aristotle, of the principal works in our literature, of the rapid progress of the sciences, and chiefly of those of astronomy. What our colleague chiefly appreciated in these two young friends, was a true sensibility, and great warmth of feeling. I know that years have not effaced or weakened these rare qualities in the bosoms of those two Brétons. M. Pariset, our colleague, and M. Villenave, will therefore think it natural in me to thank them here, in the name of science and literature, in the name of humanity, for the few moments of sweet peace and happiness that they afforded to our learned colleague, at a time when the inconstancy and ingratitude of men were lacerating his heart.
Louis XVI. had perished; dark clouds hung over the horizon; some acts of odious brutality showed our proscribed philosopher how little he must thenceforward depend on public sympathy; how much times had changed since the memorable meeting (of the 7th of October, 1791), at which the National Assembly decided that the bust of Bailly should be placed in the hall of their meetings! The storm appeared near and very menacing; even persons usually of little foresight were meditating where to find shelter.
During these transactions, Charles Marquis de Casaux, known by various productions on literature and on economical politics, went and requested our colleague, together with his wife, to take a passage on board a ship that he had freighted for himself and his family. "We will first go to England," said M. Casaux; "we will then, if you prefer it, pass our exile in America. Have no anxiety, I have property; I can, without inconvenience to myself, undertake all the expenses. Pythagoras said: 'In solitude the wise man worships echo;' but this no longer suffices in France; the wise man must fly from a land that threatens to devour its children."
These warm solicitations, and the prayers of his weeping companion, could not shake the firm resolution of Bailly. "From the day that I became a public character," he said, "my fate has become irrevocably united with that of France; never will I quit my post in the moment of danger. Under any circumstances my country may depend on my devotion. Whatever may happen, I shall remain."
By regulating his conduct on such fine generous maxims, a citizen does himself honour, but he exposes himself to fall under the blows of faction.
Bailly was still at Nantes on the 30th of June, 1793, when eighty thousand Vendéans, commanded by Cathelineau and Charette, went to besiege that city.
Let us imagine to ourselves the position of the President of the sitting of the "Jeu de Paume," of the first Mayor of Paris, in a city besieged by the Vendéans! We cannot presume that the unfavourable opinion of the Convention under which he was labouring, and the rigorous surveillance to which he was subjected, would have saved him from harsh treatment if the town had been taken. No one can therefore be surprised that after the victory of Nanteans, our colleague hastened to follow out his project, formed a short time before, of withdrawing from the insurgent provinces.
Up to the beginning of July 1793, Mélun had enjoyed perfect tranquillity. Bailly knew it through M. de Laplace, who, living retired in that chief town of the department, was there composing the immortal work in which the wonders of the heavens are studied with so much depth and genius. He also knew that the great geometer, hoping to be still more retired in a cottage on the banks of the Seine, and out of the town, was going to dispose of his house in Mélun. It is easy to guess that Bailly would be charmed with the prospect of residing far away from political agitation, and near to his illustrious friend!
The arrangements were promptly made, and on the 6th of July, M. and Madame Bailly quitted Nantes in company with M. and Madame Villenave, who were going to Rennes.
At this same time, a division of the revolutionary army was marching to Mélun. As soon as the terrible news was known, Madame Laplace wrote to Bailly, persuading him, under covert expressions, to give up the intended project. The house, she said, is at the water's edge: there is extreme dampness in the rooms: Madame Bailly would die there. A letter so different from those that had preceded it, could not fail of its effect; such at least was the hope with which M. and Madame Laplace flattered themselves, when about the end of July they perceived, with inexpressible alarm, Bailly crossing the garden path. "Great God, you did not then understand our last letter!" exclaimed at the same instant our colleague's two friends. "I understood perfectly," Bailly replied with the greatest calm; "but on the one hand, the two servants who followed me to Nantes, having heard that I was going to be imprisoned, quitted me; on the other hand, if I am to be arrested, I wish it to be in a house that I have occupied some time. I will not be described in any act as an individual without a domicile!" Can it be said, after this, that great men are not subject to strange weaknesses?
These minute details will be my only answer to some culpable expressions that I have met with in a work very widely spread: "M. Laplace," says the anonymous writer "knew all the secrets of geometry; but he had not the least notion of the state France was in, he therefore imprudently advised Bailly to go and join him."
What is to be here deplored as regards imprudence, is, that a writer, without exactly knowing the facts, should authoritatively pronounce such severe sentences against one of the most illustrious ornaments of our country.
Bailly did not even enjoy the puerile satisfaction of taking rank among the domiciled citizens of Mélun. For two days after his arrival in that town, a soldier of the revolutionary army having recognized him, brutally ordered him to accompany him to the municipality: "I am going there," coolly replied Bailly; "you may follow me there."
The municipal body of Mélun had at that time an honest and very courageous man at its head, M. Tarbé des Sablons. This virtuous magistrate endeavoured to prove to the multitude, (with which the Hôtel de Ville was immediately filled by the news, rapidly propagated, of the arrest of the old Mayor of Paris,) that the passports granted at Nantes, countersigned at Rennes, showed nothing irregular; that according to the terms of the law, he could not but set Bailly at liberty, under pain of forfeiture. Vain efforts! To avoid a bloody catastrophe, it was necessary to promise that reference would be made to Paris, and that in the mean time he should be guarded—à vue—in his own house.
The surveillance, perhaps purposely, was not at all strict; to escape would have been very easy. Bailly utterly discarded the notion. He would not at any price have compromised M. Tarbé, nor even his guard.
An order from the Committee of Public Safety enjoined the authorities of Mélun to transfer Bailly to one of the prisons of the capital. On the day of departure, Madame Laplace paid a visit to our unfortunate colleague. She represented to him again the possibility of escape. The first scruples no longer existed; the escort was already waiting in the street. But Bailly was inflexible. He felt perfectly safe. Madame Laplace held her son in her arms; Bailly took the opportunity of turning the conversation to the education of children. He treated the subject, to which he might well have been thought a stranger, with a remarkable superiority, and ended even with several amusing anecdotes that would deserve a place in the witty and comic gallery of "les Enfants terribles."
On arriving at Paris, Bailly was imprisoned at the Madelonnettes, and some days after at La Force. They there granted him a room, where his wife and his nephews were permitted to visit him.
Bailly had undergone only one examination of little importance, when he was summoned as a witness in the trial of the queen.
Bailly, under the weight of a capital accusation, and precisely on account of a portion of the acts imputed to Marie Antoinette, was heard as a witness in the trial of that princess. The annals of tribunals, either ancient or modern, never offered any thing like this. What did they hope for? To lead our colleague to make inexact declarations, or to concealments from a feeling of imminent personal danger? To suggest the thought to him to save his own head at the expense of that of an unhappy woman? To make virtue finally stagger? At all events, this infernal combination failed; with a man like Bailly it could not succeed.
"Do you know the accused?" said the President to Bailly. "Oh! yes, I do know her!" answered the witness, in a tone of emotion, and bowing respectfully to Marie Antoinette. Bailly then protested with horror against the odious imputations that the act of accusation had put into the mouth of the young dauphin. From that moment Bailly was treated with great harshness. He seemed to have lost in the eyes of the tribunal the character of a witness, and to have become the accused. The turn that the debates took would really authorize us to call the sitting in which the queen was condemned, (in which she figured ostensibly as the only one accused,) the trial of Marie Antoinette and of Bailly. What signified, after all, this or that qualification of this monstrous trial? in the judgment of any man of feeling, never did Bailly prove himself more noble, more courageous, more worthy, than in this difficult situation.
Bailly appeared again before the Revolutionary Tribunal, and this time as the accused, the 10th of November 1793. The accusation bore chiefly on the pretended participation of the Mayor of Paris in the escape of Louis XVI. and his family, and in the catastrophe that occurred in the Champ de Mars.
If any thing in the world appeared evident, even in 1793, even before the detailed revelations of the persons who took a more or less direct part in the event, it is, that Bailly did not facilitate the departure of the royal family; it is that, in proportion to the suspicions that reached him, he did all that was in his power to prevent their departure; it is, that the President of the sitting of the Jeu de Paume had not, and could never have had in any case, an intention of going to join the fugitive family in a strange country; it is that, finally, any act emanating from a public authority in which such expressions as the following could be found: "The deep wickedness of Bailly.... Bailly thirsted for the people's blood!" must have excited the disgust and indignation of good men, whatever might be their political opinions.
The accusation, as far as it regarded the murderous fusillade on the Champ de Mars, had more weight; this event had as counterpoises, the 10th of August and the 31st of May; La Fayette says in his memoirs, that those two days were a retaliation. It is at least certain that the terrible scenes of the 17th of July cost Bailly his life; they left deep impressions in people's minds, which were still perceptible after the revolution of 1830, and which, on more than one occasion, rendered the position of La Fayette one of great delicacy. I have therefore studied them most attentively, with a very sincere and lively desire to dissipate, once for all, the clouds that seemed to have obscured this point, this sole point, in the life of Bailly. I have succeeded, Gentlemen, without ever having had a wish or occasion to veil the truth. I do no Frenchman the injustice to suppose that I need define to him an event of the national history that has been so influential on the progress of our revolution, but perhaps, there may be some foreigners present at this sitting. It will be therefore for them only that I shall here relate some details. We must bring to mind some deplorable circumstances of the evening of the 17th July, when the multitude had assembled on the Champ de Mars or Champ de la Fédération, around the altar of their country, the remains of the wooden edifice that had been raised to celebrate the anniversary of the 14th of July. Part of this crowd signed a petition tending to ask the forfeiture of the throne by Louis XVI., then lately reconducted from Varennes, and on whose fate the Constituent Assembly had been enacting regulations. On that occasion martial law was proclaimed. The National Guard, with Bailly and La Fayette at their head, went to the Champ de Mars; they were assailed by clamours, by stones, and by the firing of a pistol; the Guard fired; many victims fell, without its being possible to say exactly how many, for the estimates, according to the effect that the reporters wished to produce, varied from eighty to two thousand!
The Revolutionary Tribunal heard several witnesses relative to the events on the Champ de Mars: amongst them I find Chaumette, Procurator of the Commune of Paris; Lullier, the Syndic Procurator General of the Department; Coffinhal, Judge of the Revolutionary Tribunal; Dufourny, manufacturer of gunpowder; Momoro, a printer.
All these witnesses strongly blamed the old Mayor of Paris; but who is there that does not know how much arbitrariness and cruelty these individuals, whom I have mentioned above, showed during our misfortunes? Their declarations, therefore, must be received with great suspicion.
The sincere admirers of Bailly would be relieved of a great weight, if the event of the Champ de la Fédération had been darkened only by the testimonies of Chaumettes and Coffinhals. Unfortunately, the public accuser produced some very grave documents during the debates, which the impartial historian cannot overlook. Let us say, however, just to correct one error out of a thousand, that on the day of Bailly's trial, the public accuser was Naulin, and not Fouquier Tinville, notwithstanding all that has been written on this subject by persons calling themselves well-informed, and even some of the accused's intimate friends.
The catastrophe of the Champ de Mars, when impartially examined in its essential phases, presents some very simple problems:
Was a petition to the Constituent Assembly illegal that was got up on the 17th of July, 1791, against a decree issued on the 15th?
Had the petitioners, by assembling on the Champ de Mars, violated any law?
Could the two murders committed in the morning be imputed to these men?
Had projects of disorder and rebellion been manifested with sufficient evidence to justify the proclamation of martial law, and especially the putting it into practice?
I say it, Gentlemen, with deep grief, these problems will be answered in the negative by whoever takes the trouble to analyze without passion, and without preconceived opinions, some authentic documents, which people in general seem to have made it a point to leave in oblivion. But I hasten to add, that considering the question as to intention, Bailly will continue to appear, after this examination, quite as humane, quite as honourable, quite as pure as we have found him to be in the other phases of a public and private life, which might serve as a model.
In the best epochs of the National Assembly, no one who belonged to it would have dared to maintain, that to draw up and sign a petition, whatever might be the object of it, were rebellious acts. Never, at that time, would the President of that great Assembly have called down hate, public vengeance, or a sanguinary repression upon those who attempted, said Charles Lameth, in the sitting of the 16th of July, "to oppose their individual will to the law, which is an expression of the national will." The right of petition seemed as if it ought to be absolute, even if contrary to sanctioned and promulgated laws in full action, and even more so against legislative arrangements still under discussion, or scarcely voted.
The petitioners of the Champ de Mars asked the Constituent Assembly to revise a decree that they had issued two days before. We have no occasion to examine whether the act was reasonable, opportune, dictated by an enlightened view of the public good. The question is simple; in soliciting the Assembly to revise a decree, they violated no law. Perhaps it will be thought that the petitioners at least committed an unusual act, contrary to all custom. Even this would be unfounded. In ten various instances, the National Assembly modified or annulled its own decrees; in twenty others, it had been entreated to revise them, without any cry of anarchy being raised.
It is well ascertained, that the crowd on the Champ de Mars availed itself of a right that the constitution recognized, that of getting up and signing a petition against a decree which, right or wrong, it thought was opposed to the true interests of the country. Still, the exercise of the right of petitioning was always wisely subjected to certain forms. Had these forms been violated? Was the meeting illegal?
In 1791, according to the decrees, every meeting that wished to exercise the right of petition must consist of unarmed citizens, and be announced to the competent authorities twenty-four hours beforehand.
Well, on the 16th of July, twelve persons had gone as a deputation to the municipality, in order to declare, according to law, that the next day, the 17th, numerous citizens would meet, without arms, on the Champ de Mars, where they wished to sign a petition. The deputation obtained an acknowledgment of its declaration from the hand of the syndic procurator Desmousseaux, who addressed them besides with these solemn words: "The law shields you with its inviolability."
The acknowledgment was presented to Bailly on the day of his condemnation.
Had they committed some assassinations? Yes, undoubtedly; they had committed two; but in the morning, very early; but at the Gros Caillou, and not on the Champ de Mars. Those horrid murders could not legitimately be imputed to the petitioners who, eight or ten hours after, surrounded the altar of their country; to the crowd who fell by the fusillade of the National Guard. By changing the date of these crimes, and displacing also the localities where these crimes were committed, some historians of our revolution, and amongst others the best known of all, have given, without intending it, to the meeting in the afternoon, a character that cannot be honestly concurred in.
It is requisite we should know at what hour, in what place, and how, these misfortunes happened, before we hazard an opinion on the sanguinary acts of that day, the 17th of July.
A young man had gone that day very early to the altar of his country. This young man wished to copy several inscriptions. All at once he heard a singular noise, and very soon after the worm of a wimble shot up from the planked floor on which he was standing. The youth went and sought the guard, who raised the plank, and found beneath the altar two ill-looking individuals, lying down, and furnished with provisions. One of these men was an invalid with a wooden leg. The guard seized them, and took them to the Gros Caillou, to the section, to the Commissary of Police. On the way, the barrel of water with which these unfortunate men had provided themselves under the altar of their country, was transformed, according to the ordinary course of things, into a barrel of gunpowder. The inhabitants of that quarter of the town collected together; it was on a Sunday. The women especially showed themselves very much irritated when the purpose of the auger-holes was told them, as declared by the invalid. When the two prisoners came out of the hall to be conducted to the Hôtel de Ville, the crowd tore them from the guard, massacred them, and paraded their heads on pikes!
It cannot be too often repeated, that these hideous assassinations, this execution of two old vagabonds by the barbarous and blinded population of the Gros Caillou, evidently had no relation to, no connection with, the events which, in the evening, carried mourning into the Champ de la Fédération.
On the evening of the 17th of July, from five to seven o'clock, had the crowd which was collected around the altar of their country an aspect of turbulence, giving reason to fear a riot, sedition, violence, or any anarchical enterprise?
Relative to this point, we have the written declaration of three councillors, whom the municipality had sent in the morning to the Gros Caillou, on the first intimation of the two assassinations of which I have just spoken. This declaration was presented to Bailly on the day of his condemnation. We read therein, "that the assembled citizens on the Champ de Mars had in no way acted contrary to law; that they only asked for time to sign their petition before they retired; that the crowd had shown all possible respect to the commissaries, and given proofs of submission to the law and its agents." The Municipal Councillors, on their return to the Hôtel de Ville, accompanied by a deputation of twelve of the petitioners, protested strongly against the proclamation of martial law; they declared that if the red flag was unfurled, they would be regarded, and with some appearance of reason, as traitors and faithless men.
Vain efforts; the anger of the councillors, confined since the morning at the Hôtel de Ville, carried the day over the enlightened opinion of those who had been sent scrupulously to study the state of affairs, who had mixed in the crowd, who returned after having reassured it by promises.
I might invoke the testimony of one of my honourable colleagues. Led by the fine weather, and somewhat also by curiosity, towards the Champ de Mars, he was enabled to observe all; and he has assured me that there never was a meeting which showed less turbulence or seditious spirit; that especially the women and children were very numerous. Is it not, besides, perfectly proved now, that on the morning of the 17th July, the Jacobin club, by means of printed placards, disavowed any intention of petitioning; and that the influential men of the Jacobins and of the Cordeliers,—those men whose presence might have given to this concourse the dangerous character of a riot,—not only did not appear there, but had started in the night for the country?
By thus connecting together all the circumstances whence it is proved that martial law was proclaimed and put in practice on the 17th of July without legitimate motives, a most terrible responsibility seems at first sight to be cast on the memory of Bailly. But reassure yourselves, Gentlemen; the events which are now grouped together, and are exhibited to our eyes with complete evidence, were not known on that inauspicious day at the Hôtel de Ville, until they had been distorted by the spirit of party.
In the month of July, 1791, after the king had returned from Varennes, the monarchy and the republic began for the first time to be dangerously opposed to each other; in an instant passion took the place of cool reason in the minds of the respective partisans of the two different forms of government. The terrible formula:We must make an end of it!was in everybody's mouth.
Bailly was surrounded by those passionate politicians who, without the least scruple as to the honesty or legality of the means, are determined to make an end of the adversaries who annoy them, as soon as circumstances seem to promise them victory.
Bailly had still near him some Eschevins long accustomed to regard him as a magistrate for show.
The former gave the Mayor false, or highly coloured intelligence. The others, by long habit, did not conceive themselves obliged to communicate any thing to him.
On the bloody day of July, 1791, of all the inhabitants of Paris, perhaps Bailly was the man who knew with least detail or correctness the events of the morning and of the evening.
Bailly, with his deep horror for falsehood, would have thought that he was most cruelly insulting the magistrates, if he had not attributed to them similar sentiments to his own. His uprightness prevented his being sufficiently on the watch against the machinations of parties. It was evidently by false reports that he was induced to unfurl the red flag on the 17th of July: "It was from the reports that followed each other," he said to the Revolutionary Tribunal, on being questioned by the President, "and became more and more alarming every hour, that the council adopted the measure of marching with the armed force to the Champ de Mars."
In all his answers Bailly insisted on the repeated orders he had received from the President of the National Assembly; on the reproaches addressed to him for not sufficiently watching the agents of foreign powers; it was against these pretended agents and their creatures, that the Mayor of Paris thought he was marching when he put himself at the head of a column of National Guards.
Bailly did not even know the cause of the meeting; he had not been informed that the crowd wished to sign a petition; and that the previous evening, according to the decree of the law, there had been a declaration made to this effect before the competent authority. His answers to the Revolutionary Tribunal leave not the least doubt on this point!
Oh Eschevins, Eschevins! when your vain pretensions only were treated of, the public could forgive you; but the 17th of July, you took advantage of Bailly's confidence; you induced him to take sanguinary measures of repression, after having fascinated him with false reports; you committed a real crime. If it was the duty of the Revolutionary Tribunal, of deplorable memory, to demand in 1793 from any one an explanation of the massacres of the Champ de Mars, it was not Bailly assuredly who ought to have been accused in the first place.
The political party whose blood flowed on the 17th of July, pretended to have been the victim of a plot concocted by its adversaries. When interrogated by the President of the Revolutionary Tribunal, Bailly answered: "I had no knowledge of it, but experience has since given me reason to think that such a plot did exist at that time."
Nothing more serious has ever been written against the promoters of the sanguinary violences on the 17th of July.
The blame that has been thrown on the events of the Champ de Mars has not been confined solely to the fact of proclaiming martial law; the repressive measures that followed that proclamation have been criticized with equal bitterness.
The municipal administration was especially reproached for having hoisted a red flag much too small; a flag that was called in the Tribunala pocket flag; for not having placed this flag at the head of the column, as the law commands, but in such a position, that the public on whom the column was advancing could not see it; for having made the armed force enter the Champ de Mars, by all the gates on the side towards the town, a manœuvre that seemed rather intended to surround the multitude, than to disperse it; for having ordered the National Guard to load their arms, even on the Place de Grève; for having made the guard fire before the three required summonses were made, and fire upon the people around the altar, whilst the stones and the pistol shot, which were assigned as the motive for the sanguinary order, came from the steps and benches; for allowing some people who were endeavouring to escape on the side towards l'Ecole Militaire, and others who had actually jumped into the Seine, to be pursued, shot, and bayonetted.
It results clearly from one of Bailly's publications, from his answers to the questions put to him by the President of the Revolutionary Tribunal, from the writings of the day:
That the Mayor of Paris gave no order for the troops to be collected on the 17th of July; that he had had no conference on that day with the military authority; that if any arrangements, culpable and contrary to law were adopted, as to the situation of the cavalry, of the red flag, and of the Municipal Body, in the column marching on the Champ de Mars, they could not without injustice be imputed to him; that Bailly was not aware of the National Guard having loaded their muskets with ball before quitting the square of the Hôtel de Ville; that he was not aware even of the existence of the red flag, with whose small dimensions he had been so severely reproached; that the National Guard fired without his order; that he made every effort to stop the firing, to stop the pursuit, and make the soldiers resume their ranks; that he congratulated the troops of the line, who under the command of Hulin, entered by the gate of l'Ecole Militaire, and not only did not fire, but tore many of the unfortunate people from the hands of the National Guard, whose exasperation amounted to delirium. In short, it might he asked, relative to any want of exactness attributable to Bailly in that unfortunate affair, whether it was just to impute it to him who, in his letters to Voltaire on the origin of the sciences, wrote as follows in 1776:
"I am unfortunately short-sighted. I am often humiliated in the open country. Whilst I with difficulty can distinguish a house at the distance of a hundred paces, my friends relate to me what they see at the distance of five or six hundred. I open my eyes, I fatigue myself without seeing any thing, and I am sometimes inclined to think that they amuse themselves at my expense."
You begin to see, Gentlemen, the advantage that a firm and able lawyer might have drawn from the authentic facts that I have just been relating. But Bailly knew the pretended jury before whom he had to appear. This jury was not a collection of drunken cobblers, whatever some passionate writers may have asserted; it was worse than that, Gentlemen, notwithstanding the deservedly celebrated names that were occasionally interspersed among them: it was—let us cut the subject short—an odious, commission.
The very circumscribed list from which chance in 1793 and 1794 drew the juries of the Revolutionary Tribunals, did not embrace, as the sacred wordjuryseems to imply, all one class of citizens. The authorities formed it, after a prefatory and very minute inquiry, of their adherents only. The unfortunate defendants were thus judged not by impartial persons free from any preconceived system, but by political enemies, which is as much as to say, by that which is the most cruel and remorseless in the world.
Bailly would not be defended. After his appearance as a witness in the trial of Marie Antoinette, the ex-Mayor only wrote and had printed for circulation, a paper entitledBailly to his fellow-citizens. It closes with these affecting words:
"I have only gained by the Revolution that which my fellow-citizens have gained: liberty and equality. I have lost by it some useful situations, and my fortune is nearly destroyed. I could be happy with what remains of it to me and a clear conscience; but to be happy in the repose of my retreat, I require, my dear fellow-citizens, your esteem: I know well that, sooner or later, you will do me justice; but I require it while I live, and while I am yet amongst you."
Our colleague was unanimously condemned. We should despair of the future, unless such a unanimity struck all friends of justice and humanity with stupor, if it did not increase the number of decided adversaries to all political tribunals.
When the President of the Tribunal interrogated the accused, already declared guilty, as to whether he had any reclamations to make relative to the execution of the sentence, Bailly answered:
"I have always carried out the law; I shall know how to submit myself to it, since you are its organ."
The illustrious convict was led back to his cell.
Bailly had said in his éloge on M. de Tressan: "French gaiety produces the same effect as stoicism." These words occurred to my memory at the time when I was gathering from various sources the proof that on reëntering the Conciergerie after his condemnation, Bailly showed himself at once both gay and stoical.
He desired his nephew, M. Batbéda, to play a game at piquet with him as usual. He thought of all the circumstances connected with the frightful morrow with such coolness, that he even said with a smile to M. Batbéda during the game: "Let us rest awhile, my friend, and take a pinch of snuff; to-morrow I shall be deprived of this pleasure, for I shall have my hands tied behind my back."
I will quote some words which, while testifying to a similar degree Bailly's serenity of mind, are more in harmony with his grave character, and more worthy of being preserved in history.
One of the companions of the illustrious academician's captivity, on the evening of the 11th of November, with tears in his eyes and moved by a tender veneration, exclaimed: "Why did you let us fancy there was a possibility of acquittal? You deceived us then?"—Bailly answered: "No, I was teaching you never to despair of the laws of your country."
In the paroxysms of wild despair, some of the prisoners reviewing the past, went so far as to regret that they had never infringed the laws of the strictest honesty.
Bailly brought back these minds, erring for the moment from the path of duty, by repeating to them maxims which both in form and substance would not disparage the collections of the most celebrated moralists:
"It is false, very false, that a crime can ever be useful. The trade of an honest man is the safest, even in times of revolution. Enlightened egotism suffices to put any intelligent individual into the path of justice and truth. Whenever innocence can be sacrificed with impunity, crime is not sure of succeeding. There is so great a difference between the death of a good man and that of a wicked man, that the multitude is incapable of estimating it."
Cannibals devouring their vanquished enemies seem to me less hideous, less contrary to nature, than those wretches, the refuse of the population of large towns, who, too often alas! have carried their ferocity so far, as to disturb by their clamorous and infamous raillery the last moments of the unhappy victims about to be struck by the sword of the law. The more humiliating this picture of the degradation of the human species may be, the more we should beware of overcharging the colouring. With few exceptions, the historians of Bailly's last agony appear to me to have forgotten this duty. Was the truth, the strict truth, not sufficiently distressing? Was it requisite, without any sort of proof, to impute to the mass of the people the infernal cynicism of cannibals? Should they lightly make just sentiments of disgust and indignation rest upon an immense class of citizens? I think not, Gentlemen, and I will therefore avoid the cruelty and poignancy of chaining the thoughts for a long time on such scenes; I will prove that by rendering the drama a little less atrocious, I have only sacrificed imaginary details, which are the envenomed fruits of the spirit of the party.
I will not shut my ears to the questions that already hum around me. People will say to me, What are your claims for daring to modify a page of our revolutionary history, on which every one seemed agreed? What right have you to weaken contemporary testimonies, you, who at the time of Bailly's death, were scarcely born; you, who lived in an obscure valley of the Pyrenees, two hundred and twenty leagues from the capital?
These questions do not embarrass me at all. In short, I do not ask that the relation of what seems to me to be the expression of the truth, should be adopted upon my word. I enumerate my proofs, I express my doubts. Within these limits there is no one but has claims to bring forward; the discussion is open to all the world, the public will pronounce its definitive judgment.
As a general thesis, I will add that by concentrating our researches on one circumscribed and special object, we have a better chance of seeing it correctly and knowing it well, all other things being equal, than by scattering our attention in all directions.
As to the merit of contemporaneous narratives, it seems to me very dubious. Political passions do not allow us to see objects in their real dimensions, nor in their true forms, nor in their natural colours. Moreover, have not unpublished and very valuable documents come to shed bright colours, just where the spirit of party had spread a thick veil?
The account that Riouffe gave of the death of Bailly has almost blindly led all the historians of our revolution. What does it consist of "at bottom." The prisoner of la Conciergerie said it himself; of tales related by executioners' valets, repeated by turnkeys.
I would willingly allow this account to be set against me, notwithstanding the horrid sewer from which Riouffe had been obliged to draw, if it were not evident that this clever writer saw all the revolutionary events through the just anger that an ardent and active young man must feel after an iniquitous imprisonment; if this current of sentiments and ideas had not led him into some manifest errors.
Who has not, for example, read with tears in their eyes, in theMémoires sur les Prisons, what the author relates of the fourteen girls of Verdun? "Of those girls," he said, "of unparalleled fairness, and who appeared like young virgins dressed for a public fête. They disappeared," added Riouffe, "all at once, and were mowed down in the spring of life. The court occupied by the women the day after their death, had the appearance of a garden that had been despoiled of its flowers by a storm. I have never seen amongst us a despair equal to that excited by this barbarity."
Far be from me the intention to weaken the painful feelings which the catastrophe related by Riouffe must naturally inspire; but every one has remarked that the report of this writer is very circumstantial; the author appears to have seen all with his own eyes. Yet he has been guilty of the gravest inaccuracy.
Out of the fourteen unfortunate women who were sentenced after Verdun was retaken from the Prussians, two girls of seventeen years of age were not condemned to death on account of their youth.
This first circumstance was well worth recording. Let us go farther. A historian having lately consulted the official journals of that epoch, and the bulletin of the Revolutionary Tribunal, discovered with some surprise that among the twelveyoung girlswho were condemned, there were seven either married or widows, whose ages varied from forty-one to sixty-nine!
Contemporary accounts then, even those of Riouffe, may be submitted without irreverence to earnest discussion. When a tenth part of the funds annually devoted to researches in and examination of old chronicles, is applied to making extracts from the registers relative to the French Revolution, we shall certainly see many other hideous circumstances that revolt the soul, disappear from our contemporary history. Look at the massacres of September! The historians most in vogue report the number of victims that fell in that butchery to have been from six to twelve thousand; whilst a writer who has lately taken the trouble to analyze the prison registers in the gaoler's books, cannot make the whole amount to one thousand. Even this number is very large; but, for my part, I thank the author of this recent publication for having reduced the number of assassinations in September to less than a tenth part of what had been generally admitted.
When the discussion which I have here undertaken becomes known to the public, it will be seen how many and how important are the retrenchments to be made from that lugubrious page of our history. Another important circumstance may be appreciated, which appears to me to arise from all these facts. After having weighed my proofs, every one I hope will join me in seeing that the wretches around the scaffold of Bailly were but the refuse of the population, fulfilling for pay the part that had been assigned them by three or four wealthy cannibals.
The sentence pronounced against Bailly by the Revolutionary Tribunal was to be executed on the 12th of November, 1793. The reminiscences recently published by a fellow-prisoner of our colleague, the reminiscences of M. Beugnot, will enable us to penetrate into the Conciergerie, on the morning of that inauspicious day.
Bailly had risen early, after having slept as usual, the sleep of the just. He took some chocolate, and conversed a long time with his nephew. The young man was a prey to despair, but the illustrious prisoner preserved all his serenity. The previous evening in returning from the Tribunal, he remarked, with admirable coolness, though springing from a certain disquietude, "that the spectators of his trial had been strongly excited against him. I fear," he added, "that the mere execution of the sentence will no longer satisfy them, which might be dangerous in its consequences. Perhaps the police will provide against it." These reflections having recurred to Bailly's mind on the 12th, he asked for, and drank hastily, two cups of coffee without milk. These precautions were a sinister omen. To his friends who surrounded him at this awful moment, and were sobbing aloud, he said, "Be calm; I have rather a difficult journey to perform, and I distrust my constitution. Coffee excites and reanimates; I hope, however, to reach the end properly."
Noon had just struck. Bailly addressed a last and tender adieu to his companions in captivity, wished them a better fate, followed the executioner without weakness as well as without bravado, mounted the fatal cart, his hands tied behind his back. Our colleague was accustomed to say: "We must entertain a bad opinion of those who, in their dying moments, have not a look to cast behind them." Bailly's last look was towards his wife. A gendarme of the escort feelingly listened to his last words, and faithfully repeated them to his widow. The procession reached the entrance to the Champ de Mars, on the side towards the river, at a quarter past one o'clock. This was the place where, according to the words of the sentence, the scaffold had been raised. The blinded crowd collected there, furiously exclaimed that the sacred ground of the Champ de la Fédération should not be soiled by the presence and by the blood of him whom they called a great criminal. Upon their demand (I had almost said their orders), the scaffold was taken down again, and carried piecemeal into one of the fosses, where it was put up afresh. Bailly remained the stern witness of these frightful preparations, and of these infernal clamours. Not one complaint escaped from his lips. Rain had been falling all the morning; it was cold; it drenched the body, and especially the bare head, of the venerable man. A wretch saw that he was shivering, and cried out to him,"Thou tremblest, Bailly."—"I am cold, my friend," mildly answered the victim. These were his last words.
Bailly descended into the moat, where the executioner burnt before him the red flag of the 17th July; he then with a firm step mounted the scaffold. Let us have the courage to say it, when the head of our venerable colleague fell, the paid witnesses whom this horrid execution had assembled on the Champ de Mars burst into infamous acclamations.
I had announced a faithful recital of the martyrdom of Bailly; I have kept my word. I said that I should banish many circumstances without reality, and that the drama would thus become less atrocious. If I am to trust your aspect, I have not accomplished the second part of my promise. The imagination perhaps cannot reach beyond the cruel facts on which I have been obliged to dilate. You ask what I can have retrenched from former relations, whilst what remains is so deplorable.
The order for execution addressed by Fouquier Tinville to the executioner has been seen by several persons now living. They all declare that if it differs from the numerous orders of a similar nature that the wretch sent off daily, it was only by the substitution of the following words: "Esplanade du Champ de Mars," for the usual designation of "Place de la Revolution." Now, the Revolutionary Tribunal has deserved many anathemas, but I never remarked its being reproached with not having known how to enforce obedience.
I felt myself relieved from an immense weight, Gentlemen, when I could dispel from my thoughts the image of a melancholy march on foot of two hours, because with it there disappeared two hours of corporeal ill-usage, which, according to those same accounts, our virtuous colleague must have endured from the Conciergerie to the Champ de Mars.
An illustrious writer asserts that they conducted Bailly to the Place de la Revolution, that the scaffold there was taken to pieces on the multitude demanding it, and that the victim was then led to the Champ de Mars. This relation is not correct. The sentence expressed in positive terms, that, as an exception, the Square of the Revolution was not to be the scene of Bailly's execution. The procession went direct to the place designated.
The historian already quoted affirms that the scaffold on being put up again on the bank of the Seine was erected on a heap of rubbish; that this operation lasted some hours, and that Bailly meanwhile was drawn round the Champ de Mars several times.
These promenades are imaginary. Those men who on the arrival of the lugubrious procession vociferated that the presence of the old Mayor of Paris would soil the Champ de la Fédération, could not the next minute force him to make the circuit of it. In fact, the illustrious victim remained in the road. The cruel idea, so knowingly attributed to the actors of those hideous scenes, to raise the fatal instrument on a heap of rubbish on the river bank, so that Bailly might in his last moments see the house at Chaillot where he had composed his works, was so far from occurring to the mind of the multitude, that the sentence was executed in the moat between two walls.
I have not thought it my duty, Gentlemen, to represent the condemned man forced to carry some parts of the scaffold himself, because he had his hands tied behind his back. In my recital nobody waves the burning red flag over Bailly's head, because this barbarity is not mentioned in the narratives, otherwise so shocking, drawn up by some friends of our colleague shortly after the event; nor have I consented, with the author ofThe History of the French Revolution, to represent one of the soldiers forming the escort asking the question that led the victim to make, we must say so, the theatrical answer: "Yes, I tremble, but it is with cold;" but the more touching answer, so characteristic of Bailly; "Yes, my friend, I am cold."
Far be it from me, Gentlemen, to suppose that no soldier in the world would be capable of a despicable and culpable act. I do not ask, assuredly, the suppression of all courts-martial; but to be induced to attribute to a man dressed in a military uniform, a personal part in this frightful drama, proofs or contemporary testimonies would be required, of which I have found no trace.
If the fact had occurred, its results would certainly have become known to the public. I take to witness an event which is found related in Bailly's Memoirs.
On the 22d of July, 1789, on the square of the Hôtel de Ville, a dragoon with his sabre mutilated the corpse of Berthier. His comrades, feeling outraged by this barbarity, all showed themselves instantly resolved to fight him in succession, and so wash out in his blood the disgrace he had thrown on the whole corps. The dragoon fought that same evening and was killed.
In hisHistory of Prisons, Riouffe says that "Bailly exhausted the ferocity of the populace, of whom he had been the idol, and was basely abandoned by the people, though they had never ceased to esteem him."
Nearly the same idea is found expressed inThe History of the Revolution, and in several other works.
What is called the populace rarely read and did not write. To attack it and calumniate it therefore was a convenient thing, since no refutation need to be feared. I am far from supposing that the historians whose works I have quoted, ever gave way to such considerations; but I affirm, with entire certainty, that they have deceived themselves. In the sanguinary drama that has been unrolled before your eyes, the atrocities had a quite different source from the sentiments common to the barbarians that were swarming in the dregs of society and always ready to soil it with every crime; in plainer words, it is not to the unfortunate people who have neither property, nor capital, living by the work of their hands, to theprolétaires, that we are to impute the deplorable incidents which marked Bailly's last moments. To put forward an opinion so remote from received opinions, is imposing on one's self the duty of proving its truth.
After his condemnation, our colleague exclaimed, says La Fayette: "I die for the sitting of the Jeu de Paume, and not for the fatal day at the Champ de Mars." I do not here intend to expound these mysterious words in the glimpses they give us by a half-light; but, whatever meaning we may attribute to them, it is evident that the sentiments and passions of the lower class have no share in them; it is a point beyond discussion.