NAMED FIRST DEPUTY OF PARIS. 169 
impossible to defend both opinions. The early pages of 
the pamphlet might appear embarrassed and obscure, 
whilst in the rest there might be found great refinement, 
elegance, and appreciations full of taste. 
ASSEMBLY OF THE NOTABLES.—BAILLY IS NAMED FIRST 
DEPUTY OF PARIS; AND SOON AFTER DEAN OR SEN- 
IOR OF THE DEPUTIES OF THE COMMUNES. 
The Assembly of the Notables had no other effect than 
to show in a stronger light the disorder of the finances, 
and the other wounds that were galling France. It was 
then that the Parliament of Paris asked for the convoca- 
tion of the States General. ‘This demand was unfavour- 
ably received by Cardinal de Brienne. Soon afterwards 
the convocation became a necessity, and Necker, now in 
the ministry, announced, in the month of November, 
1788, that it was decreed in Council, and that the king 
had even granted to the third estate a double represen- 
tation, which had been so imprudently disputed by the 
courtiers. 
The districts were formed, on the king’s convocation, 
the 21st of April, 1789. That day was the first day of 
Bailly’s political life. It was on the 21st of April that 
the Citizen of Chaillot, entering the Hall of the Feul- 
lants, imagined, he said, that “he breathed a new atmos- 
phere,” and regarded “as a phenomenon that he should 
have become something in the body-politic, merely from 
his being a citizen.” 
The elections were to be made in two gradations. 
Bailly was named first elector of his district. A few 
days after, at the general meeting, the Assembly called 
him to the Board in quality of secretary. Thus it was 
our fellow-academician who, in the beginning, drew up 
x 
