20(j 



13 A I L L Y. 



n.iilly. works which we have already mentioned, Bailly com- 

 " - ^'~"~' posed in the year. 1781 and 1782, a work on the 

 Fables and religious creeds of antiquity, entitled, 

 Essai stir les Fables et Itir lettr, Hittoin, two vo- 

 lumes of which were published in 1799. 



In the year 178 1, Bailly was elected secretary of 

 the French Academy, and, in 1785, he was cho- 

 sen a member of the Academy of Inscriptions and 

 Belles Lettrcs ; the only case since the time of Fon- 

 tenclle, in which the same person was at once a mem- 

 ber of the three learned academies which then flou- 

 rished in Paris. 



The public attention having been attracted to the 

 subject of Animal Magnetism, Bailly was appointed 

 a member of the committee for examining the miracu- 

 lous effects which were said to be produced by this 

 new art. The report which he drew up for the Aca- 

 demy of Sciences was translated into English, and 

 was universally admired for the elegance of its com- 

 position, and the sound philosophy which it display- 

 ed in developing the effects produced upon the body, 

 by the influence of moral causes. 



In the year 1786, a committee was appointed by 

 the academy, to examine a plan for a new hotel-dieu 

 by the architect Poyet. Bailly, who was one of the 

 number, drew up a long report, of 250 pages, which 

 did great credit to the genius and the humanity of 

 its author. 



It would have been fortunate for Bailly had his 

 life now terminated, when worn out with the la- 

 bours of science, and loaded with the high rewards 

 which are reserved for genius and learning. A fatal 

 necessity, however, dragged him from the hallowed 

 retreats of philosophy upon the stage of public life, 

 and compelled him to act a conspicuous and a zealous 

 part in that bloody struggle by which his countrymen 

 sought for the blessings of a free government. Those 

 who have witnessed the atrocities of this barbarous re- 

 volution, and have seen it terminating in a military go- 

 vernment, more oppressive than the despotism of the 

 House of Bourbon, may well question the prudence of 

 a people who throw themselves loose from the whole- 

 some restraints of the law, and seek for a reforma- 

 tion of their government from the assistance of an 

 unbridled populace, and amid the selfish tumults of 

 contending factions. But they are not entitled to sit 

 in severe judgment upon the conduct of those who 

 listened to the groans of an oppressed people, and 

 who lent the courage of their hearts, and the vigour 

 of their miuds, to impose a salutary check upon the 

 licentiousness of arbitrary power, and to establish, 

 without the waste of blood, the eternal and immuta- 

 ble principles of rational freedom. Bailly was one 

 of those true patriots, who panted for the deliverance 

 of his country, and proffered his most ardent ex- 

 ertions in her sacred cause. On the 26th of April 

 1789, he was chosen secretary by the electors of 

 Paris ; and when the states-general assembled in the 

 same year, he was elected deputy to the Tiers Kiut, 

 or Commons, and was afterwards appointed president 

 of that magnanimous body. When the National 

 Assembly was constituted, Bailly was appointed. 



president for four days. The proclamation of the 

 king to disperse this illegal combination, bound to- 

 gether by new ties the members of the National As- 

 sembly. They resolved to assert the rights of the 

 people ; and Bailly dictated the famous oath to the 

 members of the Tiers Ktnl, " that they would resist 

 tyrants and tyranny, and would never separate till 

 they had obtained a free constitution." On the 15th 

 of July 1789, the day after the surrender of the Bas- 

 tille, M. Bailly was appointed, by general acclama- 

 tion, Mayor of Paris, an office which had long been 

 dormant. The courage which he displayed in ful- 

 filling the duties of this high trust, was uniformly- 

 tempered with moderation ; and while in the rigorous 

 execution of the laws, he avoided the extreme of 

 harshness and cruelty, he never forgot the imperious 

 duty of forwarding the views of the popular party, 

 and baffling the plans of the court faction, who re- 

 sisted every restraint, however rational, upon despo- 

 tic power. In testimony of the high esteem in which 

 his public conduct was held, his bust was placed with 

 great pomp in the municipality, and likewise in the 

 academy of sciences, where those of l.ving academi- 

 cians had never before been admitted. 



Though a deserved favourite with the people, the 

 temperate measures which he pursued did not well 

 accord with the passions of an unbridled nub, from 

 whom the fetters of despotism had been but newly 

 broken. Bailly saw with regret, the dreadful ex- 

 treme to which their fury was hurrying them on. 

 He resolved to make one effort for the preserva- 

 tion of tranquillity, and hoped that by measures of 

 decisive energy he might yet oppose an effectual 

 barrier to the swelling tide of universal anarchy. He 

 therefore opposed the violent proceedings of Ma- 

 rat and Hubert. He arrested the deputies from the 

 military insurgents at Nancy. He exerted himself 

 to persuade the populace to allow the royal family to 

 depart for St Cloud ; and on the 17th July, 1791, 

 when the mob demanded the abolition of monarchy, 

 and assaulted the troops that were called out to dis- 

 perse them, he ordered the soldiers to fire, by which 

 about forty persons were killed, and above four hun- 

 dred wounded. By these measures he lost the fa- 

 vour of the populace, and resigned the mayoralty on 

 the 16th November 1791, when the constituent as- 

 sembly was dissolved. 



The ill health into which he had now fallen, induced 

 him to travel through different parts of France in 

 1792 and 1793, and to pursue in the bosom of peace- 

 ful retirement those delightful researches which the 

 political convulsions of his country had so cruelly in- 

 terrupted. During this seclusion, he amused himself 

 in composing memoirs of the events in which he bore 

 such a conspicuous part ;* and when employed in this 

 occupation, he was arrested by the orders of Robe- 

 spierre, and condemned to death on the 10th of No- 

 vember, 1793. Clothed in the red shirt, Bailly was 

 placed in a cart, with his hands tied behind his back, 

 and driven to the fatal guillotine, erected on the spot 

 where he had ordered the military to lire upon the peo- 

 ple. The very populace who had once adored him. 



Baiity, 



* These Memoirs, which are expected to be soon published, occupy 600 quarto pages, and corae dowa to the 2d Octo- 

 ber 1783* 



