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 of _the 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 the _aristocracy 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 the _aristocracy 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
pronoun _I_ so 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, mechani