atisfy them, which might be
dangerous in its consequences. Perhaps the police will provide against
it." These reflections having recurred to Bailly's mind on the 12th, he
asked for, and drank hastily, two cups of coffee without milk. These
precautions were a sinister omen. To his friends who surrounded him at
this awful moment, and were sobbing aloud, he said, "Be calm; I have
rather a difficult journey to perform, and I distrust my constitution.
Coffee excites and reanimates; I hope, however, to reach the end
properly."

Noon had just struck. Bailly addressed a last and tender adieu to his
companions in captivity, wished them a better fate, followed the
executioner without weakness as well as without bravado, mounted the
fatal cart, his hands tied behind his back. Our colleague was accustomed
to say: "We must entertain a bad opinion of those who, in their dying
moments, have not a look to cast behind them." Bailly's last look was
towards his wife. A gendarme of the escort feelingly listened to his
last words, and faithfully repeated them to his widow. The procession
reached the entrance to the Champ de Mars, on the side towards the
river, at a quarter past one o'clock. This was the place where,
according to the words of the sentence, the scaffold had been raised.
The blinded crowd collected there, furiously exclaimed that the sacred
ground of the Champ de la Federation should not be soiled by the
presence and by the blood of him whom they called a great criminal. Upon
their demand (I had almost said their orders), the scaffold was taken
down again, and carried piecemeal into one of the fosses, where it was
put up afresh. Bailly remained the stern witness of these frightful
preparations, and of these infernal clamours. Not one complaint escaped
from his lips. Rain had been falling all the morning; it was cold; it
drenched the body, and especially the bare head, of the venerable man. A
wretch saw that he was shivering, and cried out to him, _"Thou
tremblest, Bailly."_--"_I am cold, my friend_," mildly answered the
victim. These were his last words.

Bailly descended into the moat, where the executioner burnt before him
the red flag of the 17th July; he then with a firm step mounted the
scaffold. Let us have the courage to say it, when the head of our
venerable colleague fell, the paid witnesses whom this horrid execution
had assembled on the Champ de Mars burst into infamous acclamations.

I had announced a faithful r