bune:--

"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 Hotel 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 Hotel 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 Hotel 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
Hotel 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 Hotel 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 af