on had put into
the mouth of the young dauphin. From that moment Bailly was treated with
great harshness. He seemed to have lost in the eyes of the tribunal the
character of a witness, and to have become the accused. The turn that
the debates took would really authorize us to call the sitting in which
the queen was condemned, (in which she figured ostensibly as the only
one accused,) the trial of Marie Antoinette and of Bailly. What
signified, after all, this or that qualification of this monstrous
trial? in the judgment of any man of feeling, never did Bailly prove
himself more noble, more courageous, more worthy, than in this difficult
situation.

Bailly appeared again before the Revolutionary Tribunal, and this time
as the accused, the 10th of November 1793. The accusation bore chiefly
on the pretended participation of the Mayor of Paris in the escape of
Louis XVI. and his family, and in the catastrophe that occurred in the
Champ de Mars.

If any thing in the world appeared evident, even in 1793, even before
the detailed revelations of the persons who took a more or less direct
part in the event, it is, that Bailly did not facilitate the departure
of the royal family; it is that, in proportion to the suspicions that
reached him, he did all that was in his power to prevent their
departure; it is, that the President of the sitting of the Jeu de Paume
had not, and could never have had in any case, an intention of going to
join the fugitive family in a strange country; it is that, finally, any
act emanating from a public authority in which such expressions as the
following could be found: "The deep wickedness of Bailly.... Bailly
thirsted for the people's blood!" must have excited the disgust and
indignation of good men, whatever might be their political opinions.

The accusation, as far as it regarded the murderous fusillade on the
Champ de Mars, had more weight; this event had as counterpoises, the
10th of August and the 31st of May; La Fayette says in his memoirs, that
those two days were a retaliation. It is at least certain that the
terrible scenes of the 17th of July cost Bailly his life; they left deep
impressions in people's minds, which were still perceptible after the
revolution of 1830, and which, on more than one occasion, rendered the
position of La Fayette one of great delicacy. I have therefore studied
them most attentively, with a very sincere and lively desire to
dissipate, once for all, the clouds th