his reminiscences beyond the date of the 2d of October, 1789. The
analysis and appreciation of the events subsequent to that epoch will
remain deprived of that influential sanction, pure as virtue, concise
and precise as truth, which I found in the handwriting of our colleague.
Xenocrates, historians say, who was celebrated among the Greeks for his
honesty, being called to bear witness before a tribunal, the judges with
common consent stopped him as he was advancing towards the altar
according to the usual custom, and said, "These formalities are not
required from you; an oath would add nothing to the authority of your
words." Such, Bailly presents himself to the reader of his Posthumous
Memoirs. None of his assertions leave any room for indecision or doubt.
He needs not high-flown expressions or protestations in order to
convince; nor would an oath add authority to his words. He may be
deceived, but he is never the deceiver.
I will spare no effort to give to the description of the latter part of
Bailly's life, all the correctness which can result from a sincere and
conscientious comparison of the writings published as well by the
partisans as by the enemies of our great revolution. Such, however, is
my desire to prevent two phases, though very distinct, being confounded
together, that I shall here pause, in order to cast a scrupulous glance
on the actions and on the various publications of our colleague. I shall
moreover thus have an easy opportunity of filling up some important
lacunæ.
I read in a biographical article, otherwise very friendly, that Bailly
was nominated the very day of, and immediately after, the assassination
of M. de Flesselles; and in this identity the wish was to insinuate that
the first Mayor of Paris received this high dignity from the bloody
hands of a set of wretches. The learned biographer, notwithstanding his
good will, has ill repelled the calumny. With a little more attention he
would have succeeded better. A simple comparison of dates would have
sufficed. The death of M. de Flesselles occurred on the 14th of July;
Bailly was nominated two days after.
I will address the same remark to the authors of a Biographical
Dictionary still more recent, in which they speak of the ineffectual
efforts that Bailly made to prevent the multitude from murdering the
governor of the Bastille (de Launay). But Bailly had no opportunity of
making an effort, for he was then at Versailles; no duty called him to
Paris, nor did he become Mayor till two days after the taking of the
fortress. It is really inexcusable not to have compared the two dates,
by which these errors would have been avoided.
Many persons very little acquainted with contemporaneous history, fancy
that during the whole duration of Bailly's administration, Paris was
quite a cut-throat place. That is a romance; the following is the
truth:--
Bailly was Mayor during two years and four months. In that time there
occurred four political assassinations; those of Foulon and of Berthier
de Sauvigny, his son-in-law, at the Hôtel de Ville; that of M. Durocher,
a respectable officer of the gendarmerie, killed at Chaillot, by a
musket-shot, in August, 1789; and that of a baker massacred in a riot in
the month of October of the same year. I do not speak of the
assassination of two unfortunate men on the Champ de Mars in July, 1791,
as that deplorable fact must be considered separately.
The individuals guilty of the assassination of the baker were seized,
condemned to death, and executed. The family of the unfortunate victim
became the object of the anxious care of all the authorities, and
obtained a pension.
The death of M. Durocher was attributed to some Swiss soldiers who had
revolted.
The horrible and ever to be deplored assassinations of Foulon and of
Berthier, are among those misfortunes which, under certain given
circumstances, no human power could prevent.
In times of scarcity, a slight word, either true or unfounded, suffices
to create a terrible commotion.
Réveillon is made to say, that a workman can live upon fifteen sous per
diem, and behold his manufactory destroyed from top to bottom.
They ascribe to Foulon the barbarous vaunt; "I will force the people to
eat hay;" and without any order from the constituted authorities, some
peasants, neighbours of the old minister, arrest him, take him to Paris,
his son-in-law experiences the same fate, and the famished populace
immolates both of them.
In proportion as the multitude appear to me unjust and culpable, in
attacking certain men respecting a scarcity of provisions, when it is
the manifest consequence of the severity of the seasons, I should be
disposed to excuse their rage against the authors of factitious
scarcities. Well, Gentlemen, at the time that Foulon was assassinated,
the people, deceived by some impassioned orators of the Assembly, might,
or let us rather say, ought to believe, that they were wilfully
famished. Foulon perished the 22d of July, 1789; on the 15th, that is to
say, seven days before, Mirabeau had addressed the following incendiary
words to the inhabitants of the capital, from the National Tribune:--
"Henry IV. allowed provisions to be taken into besieged and rebellious
Paris; but now, some perverse ministers intercept convoys of provisions
destined for famished and obedient Paris."
Yet people have been so inconsiderate as to be astonished at the
assassinations of Foulon and of Berthier. Going back in thought to the
month of July, 1789, I perceive in the imprudent apostrophe of the
eloquent tribune, more sanguinary disorders than the contemporary
history has had to record.
One of the most honourable, one of the most respectable and the most
respected members of the institute, having been led, in a recent work,
to relate the assassination of Foulon, has thrown on the conduct of
Bailly, under those cruel circumstances, an aspersion that I read with
surprise and grief. Foulon was detained in the Hôtel de Ville. Bailly
went down into the square, and succeeded for a moment in calming the
multitude. "I did not imagine," said the Mayor in his memoirs, "that
they could have forced the Hôtel de Ville, a well-guarded post, and an
object of respect to all the citizens. I therefore thought the prisoner
in perfect safety; I did not doubt but the waves of this storm would
finally subside, and I departed."
The honourable author of the _History of the Reign of Louis XVI._
opposes to this passage the following words taken from the official
minutes of the Hôtel de Ville: "The electors (those who had accompanied
Bailly out to the square) reported in the Hall the certainty that the
calm would not last long." The new historian adds: "How could the Mayor
alone labour under this delusion? It is too evident, that on such a day,
the public tranquillity was much too uncertain, to allow of the chief
magistrate of the town absenting himself without deserving the reproach
of weakness." The remainder of the passage shows too evidently, that in
the author's estimation, weakness here was synonymous with cowardice.
It is against this, Gentlemen, that I protest with heartfelt
earnestness. Bailly absented himself because he did not think that the
Hôtel de Ville could be forced. The electors in the passage quoted do
not enunciate a different opinion: where then is the contradiction?
Bailly deceived himself in this expectation, for the multitude burst
into the Hôtel de Ville. We will grant that there was an error of
judgment in this; but nothing in the world authorizes us to call in
question the courage of the Mayor.
To decide after the blow, with so little hesitation or consideration,
that Bailly ought not to have absented himself from the House of the
Commune, we must forget that, under such circumstances, the obligations
of the first magistrate of the city were quite imperious and very
numerous; it is requisite, above all, not to remember that each day, the
provision of flour required for the nourishment of seven or eight
hundred thousand inhabitants, depended on the measures adopted on the
previous evening. M. de Crosne, who on quitting the post of Lieutenant
of Police, had not ceased to be a citizen, was during some days a very
enlightened and zealous councillor for Bailly; but on the day that
Foulon was arrested, this dismissed magistrate thought himself lost. He
and his family made an appeal to the gratitude and humanity of our
colleague. It was to procure a refuge for them, that Bailly employed the
few hours of absence with which he was so much reproached: those hours
during which that catastrophe happened which the Mayor could not have
prevented, since even the superhuman efforts of General Lafayette,
commanding an armed force, proved futile. I will add, that to spare M.
de Crosne an arbitrary arrest, the imminent danger of which alas! was
too evident in the death of Berthier, Bailly absented himself again from
the Hôtel de Ville on the night of the 22d to the 23d of July, to
accompany the former Lieutenant of Police to a great distance from
Paris.
There is not a more distressing spectacle than that of one honest man
wrongfully attacking another honest man. Gentlemen, let us never
willingly leave the satisfaction and the advantage of it to the wicked.
To appreciate the actions of our predecessors with impartiality and
justice, it would be indispensable to keep constantly before our eyes
the list of unheard-of difficulties that the revolution had to surmount,
and to remember the very restricted means of repression placed at the
disposal of the authorities in the beginning.
The scarcity of food gave rise to many embarrassments, to many a crisis;
but causes of quite another nature had not less influence on the march
of events.
In his memoirs, Bailly speaks of the manoeuvres of a redoubtable
faction labouring for ... under the name of the.... The names are blank.
A certain editor of the work filled up the lacunæ. I have not the same
hardihood, I only wished to remark that Bailly had to combat at once
both the spontaneous effervescence of the multitude, and the intrigues
of a crowd of secret agents, who distributed money with a liberal hand.
Some day, said our colleague, the infernal genius who directed those
intrigues and _le bailleur de fonds_ will be known. Although the proper
names are wanting, it is certain that some persons inimical to the
revolution urged it to deplorable excesses.
These enemies had collected in the capital thirty or forty thousand
vagabonds. What could be opposed to them? The Tribunals? They had no
moral power, and were declared enemies to the revolution. The National
Guard? It was only just formed; the officers scarcely knew each other,
and moreover scarcely knew the men who were to obey them. Was it at
least permitted to depend on the regular armed force? It consisted of
six battalions of French Guards without officers; of six thousand
soldiers who, from every part of France, had flocked singly to Paris, on
reading in the newspapers the following expressions from General
Lafayette: "They talk of deserters! The real deserters are those men who
have not abandoned their standards." There were finally six hundred
Swiss Guards in Paris, deserters from their regiments; for, let us speak
freely, the celebrated monument of Lucerne will not prevent the Swiss
themselves from being recognized by impartial and intelligent
historians, as having experienced the revolutionary fever.
Those who, with such poor means of repression, flattered themselves that
they could entirely prevent any disorder, in a town of seven or eight
hundred thousand inhabitants in exasperation, must have been very blind.
Those, on the other hand, who attempt to throw the responsibility of the
disorders on Bailly, would prove by this alone, that good people should
always keep aloof from public affairs during a revolution.
The administrator, a being of modern creation, now declares, with the
most ludicrous self-sufficiency, that Bailly was not equal to the
functions of a Mayor of Paris. It is, he says, by undeserved favour that
his statue has been placed on the façade of the Hôtel de Ville. During
his magistracy, Bailly did not create any large square in the capital,
he did not open out any large streets, he elevated no splendid monument;
Bailly would therefore have done better had he remained an astronomer or
erudite scholar.
The enumeration of all the public erections that Bailly did not execute
is correct. It might also have been added, that far from devoting the
municipal funds to building, he had the vast and threatening castle of
the Bastille demolished down to its very foundation's; but this would
not deprive Bailly of the honour of having been one of the most
enlightened magistrates that the city of Paris could boast.
Bailly did not enlarge any street, did not erect any palace during the
twenty-eight months of his administration! No, undoubtedly! for, first
it was necessary to give bread to the inhabitants of Paris; now the
revenues of the town, added to the daily sums furnished by Necker,
scarcely sufficed for those principal wants. Some years before, the
Parisians had been very much displeased at the establishment of import
dues on all alimentary substances. The writers of that epoch preserved
the burlesque Alexandrine, which was placarded all over the town, on the
erection of the Octroi circumvallation:
"Le mur murant Paris, rend Paris murmurant."[13]
The multitude was not content with murmuring; the moment that a
favourable opportunity occurred, it went to the barriers and broke them
down. These were reëstablished by the administration with great trouble,
and the smugglers often took them down by main force. The _Octroi_
revenue from the imports, which used to amount to 70,000 francs, now
fell to less than 30,000. Those persons who have considered the figures
of the present revenue, will assuredly not compare such very dissimilar
epochs.
But it is said that ameliorations in the moral world may often be
effected without expense. What were those for which the public was
indebted to the direct exertions of Bailly? The question is simple, but
repentance will follow the having asked it. My answer is this: One of
the most honourable victories gained by mathematics over the avaricious
prejudices of the administrations of certain towns has been, in our own
times, the radical suppression of gambling-houses. I will hasten to
prove that such a suppression had already engaged Bailly's attention,
that he had partly effected it, and that no one ever spoke of those
odious dens with more eloquence and firmness.
"I declare," wrote the Mayor of Paris on the 5th of May, 1790, "that the
gambling-houses are in my opinion a public scourge. I think that these
meetings not only should not be tolerated, but that they ought to be
sought out and prosecuted, as much as the liberty of the citizens, and
the respect due to their homes, will admit.
"I regard the tax that has been levied from such houses as a disgraceful
tribute. I do not think that it is allowable to employ a revenue derived
from vice and disorder, even to do good. In consequence of these
principles, I have never granted any permit to gambling-houses; I have
constantly refused them. I have constantly announced that not only they
would not be tolerated, but that they would be sought out and
prosecuted."
If I add that Bailly suppressed all spectacles of animal-fighting, at
which the multitude cannot fail to acquire ferocious and sanguinary
habits, I shall have a right to ask of every superficial writer, how he
would justify the epithet of sterile, applied with such assurance to the
administration of our virtuous colleague.
Anxious to carry out in practice that which had been largely recognized
theoretically in the declaration of rights--the complete separation of
religion from civil law,--Bailly presented himself before the National
Assembly on the 14th of May, 1791, and demanded, in the name of the city
of Paris, the abolition of an order of things which, in the then state
of men's minds, gave rise to great abuses. If declarations of births, of
marriages, and of deaths are now received by civil officers in a form
agreeing with all religious opinions, the country is chiefly indebted
for it to the intelligent firmness of Bailly.
The unfortunate beings for whom all public men should feel most
solicitous, are those prisoners who are awaiting in prison the decrees
of the courts of justice. Bailly took care not to neglect such a duty.
At the end of 1790, the old tribunals had no moral power; they could no
longer act; the new ones were not yet created. This state of affairs
distracted the mind of our colleague. On the 18th of November, he
expressed his grief to the National Assembly, in terms full of
sensibility and kindness. I should be culpable if I left them in
oblivion.
"Gentlemen, the prisons are full. The innocent are awaiting their
justification, and the criminals an end to their remorse. All breathe an
unwholesome air, and disease will pronounce terrible decrees. Despair
dwells there: Despair says, either give me death, or judge me. When we
visit those prisons, that is what the fathers of the poor and the
unfortunate hear; this is what it is their duty to repeat to the fathers
of their country. We must tell them that in those asylums of crime, of
misery, and of every grief, time is infinite in its duration; a month is
a century, a month is an abyss the sight of which is frightful.... We
ask of the tribunals to empty the prisons by the justification of the
innocent, or by examples of justice."
Does it not appear to you, Gentlemen, that calm times may occasionally
derive excellent lessons, and, moreover, lessons expressed in very good
language, from our revolutionary epoch?
FOOTNOTE:
[13] "The wall walling Paris, renders Paris wailing."
THE KING'S FLIGHT.--EVENTS ON THE CHAMP DE MARS.
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 said _en 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.