in the rooms: Madame Bailly would die there. A letter
so different from those that had preceded it, could not fail of its
effect; such at least was the hope with which M. and Madame Laplace
flattered themselves, when about the end of July they perceived, with
inexpressible alarm, Bailly crossing the garden path. "Great God, you
did not then understand our last letter!" exclaimed at the same instant
our colleague's two friends. "I understood perfectly," Bailly replied
with the greatest calm; "but on the one hand, the two servants who
followed me to Nantes, having heard that I was going to be imprisoned,
quitted me; on the other hand, if I am to be arrested, I wish it to be
in a house that I have occupied some time. I will not be described in
any act as an individual without a domicile!" Can it be said, after
this, that great men are not subject to strange weaknesses?

These minute details will be my only answer to some culpable expressions
that I have met with in a work very widely spread: "M. Laplace," says
the anonymous writer "knew all the secrets of geometry; but he had not
the least notion of the state France was in, he therefore imprudently
advised Bailly to go and join him."

What is to be here deplored as regards imprudence, is, that a writer,
without exactly knowing the facts, should authoritatively pronounce such
severe sentences against one of the most illustrious ornaments of our
country.

Bailly did not even enjoy the puerile satisfaction of taking rank among
the domiciled citizens of Melun. For two days after his arrival in that
town, a soldier of the revolutionary army having recognized him,
brutally ordered him to accompany him to the municipality: "I am going
there," coolly replied Bailly; "you may follow me there."

The municipal body of Melun had at that time an honest and very
courageous man at its head, M. Tarbe des Sablons. This virtuous
magistrate endeavoured to prove to the multitude, (with which the Hotel
de Ville was immediately filled by the news, rapidly propagated, of the
arrest of the old Mayor of Paris,) that the passports granted at Nantes,
countersigned at Rennes, showed nothing irregular; that according to the
terms of the law, he could not but set Bailly at liberty, under pain of
forfeiture. Vain efforts! To avoid a bloody catastrophe, it was
necessary to promise that reference would be made to Paris, and that in
the mean time he should be guarded--_a vue_--in his own house.

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