The whole of the nobility and a portion of the clergy retired; while the Deputies of the Communes remained quietly in their places. The Grand Master of the Ceremonies having remarked it, approaching Bailly said to him, "You heard the king's order, Sir?" The illustrious President answered, "I cannot adjourn the Assembly until it has deliberated on it." "Is that indeed your answer, and am I to communicate it to the king?" "Yes, Sir," replied Bailly, and immediately addressing the Deputies who surrounded him, he said, "It appears to me that the assembled nation cannot receive an order."
It was after this debate, at once both firm and moderate, that Mirabeau addressed from his place the well-known apostrophe to M. de Brézé. The President disapproved both of the basis and the form of it; he felt that there was no sufficient motive; for, said he, the Grand Master of the Ceremonies made use of no menace; he had not in any way insinuated that there was an intention to resort to force; he had not, above all, spoken of bayonets. At all events, there is an essential difference between the words of Mirabeau as related in almost all the Histories of the Revolution, and those reported by Bailly. According to our illustrious colleague the impetuous tribune exclaimed, "Go tell those who sent you, that the force of bayonets can do nothing against the will of the nation." This is, to my mind, much more energetic than the common version. The expression, "We will only retire by the force of bayonets!" had always appeared to me, notwithstanding the admiration conceded to it, to imply only a resistance which would cease on the arrival of a corporal and half-a-dozen soldiers.
Bailly quitted the chair of President of the National Assembly on the 2d of July. His scientific celebrity, his virtue, his conciliating spirit, had not been superfluous in habituating certain men to see a member of the Communes preside over an assembly in which there was a prince of the blood, a prince of the church, the greatest lords of the kingdom, and all the high dignitaries of the clergy. The first person named to succeed to Bailly was the Duke d'Orléans. After his refusal, the Assembly chose the Archbishop of Vienne (Pompignan).
Bailly recalls to mind with sensibility, in his memoirs, the testimonies of esteem that he obtained through his difficult and laborious presidency. The 3d of July, on the proposition of the Duke de la Rochefoucauld and of the Archbishop of Bordeaux, the National Assembly sent a deputation to their illustrious ex-president, to thank him (these are the precise words) "for his noble, wise, and firm conduct." The electoral body of Bordeaux had been beforehand with these homages. The Chamber of Commerce of that town, at the same time, decided that the portrait of the great citizen should decorate their hall of meeting. The Academy of Sciences, the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles Lettres, did not remain insensible to the glory that one of their members had acquired in the career of politics, and testified it by numerous deputations. Finally, Marmontel, in the name of the French Academy, expressed to Bailly "how proud that assembly was to count, among its members an Aristides that no one was tired of calling the Just."
I shall not excite surprise, I hope, by adding, after such brilliant testimonies of sympathy, that the inhabitants of Chaillot celebrated the return of Bailly amongst them by fêtes, and fireworks, and that even the curate of the parish and the churchwardens, unwilling to be surpassed by their fellow-citizens, nominated the historian of antediluvian astronomy honorary churchwarden. I will, at all events, repress the smile that might arise from such private reminiscences, by reminding the reader that a man's moral character is better appreciated by his neighbours, to whom he shows himself daily without disguise, than that of more considerable persons, who are only seen on state occasions, and in official costume.
BAILLY BECOMES MAYOR OF PARIS.—SCARCITY.—MARAT DECLARES HIMSELF INIMICAL TO THE MAYOR.—EVENTS OF THE 6TH OF OCTOBER.
The Bastille had been taken on the 14th of July. That event, on which, during upwards of half a century, there have been endless discussions, on opposite sides, was characterized in the following way, in the address to the National Assembly, drawn up by M. Moreau de Saint Méry, in the name of the City Committee:—
"Yesterday will be for ever memorable by the taking of a citadel, consequent on the Governor's perfidy. The bravery of the people was irritated by the breaking of the word of honour. This act (the strongest proof that the nation who knows best how to obey, is jealous of its just liberties,) has been followed by incidents that from the public misfortunes might have been foreseen."
Lally Tollendal said to the Parisians, on the 15th of July: "In the disastrous circumstances that have just occurred, we did not cease to participate in your griefs; and we have also participated in your anger; it was just."