ing aside all shame, he no longer made
himself known in the field of natural philosophy, merely by imaginary
experiments, or by juggleries; he had recourse to contemptible
practices, with the object of throwing doubt upon the clearest and best
proved principles of science; for example, the metallic needles
discovered by the academician Charles, and which the foreign doctor had
adroitly concealed in a cake of resin, in order to contradict the common
opinion of the electric non-conductibility of that substance.

These details were necessary. I could not avoid characterizing the
journalist who by his daily calumnies contributed most to undermine the
popularity of Bailly. It was requisite besides, once for all, to strip
him in this circle of the epithet of philosopher, with which men of the
world, and even some historians, inconsiderately gratified him. When a
man reveals himself by some brilliant and intelligent works, the public
is pleased to find them united with good qualities of the heart. Nor
should its joy be less hearty on discovering the absence of all
intellectual merit in a man who had before shown himself despicable by
his passions, or his vices, or even only by serious blemishes of
character.

If I have not yet named the enemy of our colleague, if I have contented
myself with recounting his actions, it is in order to avoid as much as I
can the painful feeling that his name must raise here. Judge,
Gentlemen, weigh, my scruples: the furious persecutor of Bailly, of whom
I have been talking to you for some minutes, was Marat.

The revolution of '89 just occurred in time to relieve the abortive
author, physiologist, and physicist from the intolerable position into
which he had been thrown by his inability and his quackery.

As soon as the revolution had assumed a decided movement, great surprise
was occasioned by the sudden transformations excited in the inferior
walks of the political world. Marat was one of the most striking
examples of these hasty changes of principles. The Neufchatel physician
had shown himself a violent adversary to those opinions that occasioned
the convocation of the assembly of Notables, and the national commotion
in '89. At that time democratical institutions had not a more bitter or
more violent censor. Marat liked it to be believed that in quitting
France for England, he fled especially from the spectacle of social
renovation which was odious to him. Yet a month after the taking of th