a oe, Tae ee eye 
aS ee ee Tee en et 
SENIOR DEPUTY OF THE COMMUNES. 171 
Such an accusation imposed on me the duty of carrying 
the appreciation of this wisdom, of this intelligence that 
is held up against us, even to numerical correctness. The 
following is the result: the majority of the votes was 
159; Bailly obtained 173; this was fourteen more than 
he required. If fourteen votes had changed sides the 
result would have been different. Was this an incident, 
I ask, to exclaim so much against? 
Bailly showed himself deeply affected by this mark of 
the+ confidence with which he was regarded. His sensi- 
bility, his gratitude, did not prevent him, however, from 
recording in his memoirs the following naive observation : 
“T observed in the Assembly of the Electors a great dis- 
like for literary men, and for the academicians.” 
I recommend this remark to all studious men who, by 
circumstances or by a sense of duty, may be thrown into 
the whirlpool of politics. Perhaps I may yield to the 
temptation of developing it, when I shall have to charac- 
terize Bailly’s connection with his co-laborers in the first 
municipality of Paris. 
The great question on the verification of the powers 
was already strongly agitated, the day that Bailly and 
the other Deputies of Paris for the first time were able 
to go to Versailles; our academician had only spoken 
once in that majestic assembly, viz: to induce the adop- 
tion of the method of voting by members being seated or 
standing,—when, on the 3d of June, he was named Sen- 
ior of the Deputies of the Communes (or Commons). 
Formerly, the right of presiding in the third house of 
the kingdom belonged to the provost of the merchants. 
Bailly in his diffidence thought that the assembly, in as- 
signing the chair to him, had wished to compensate the 
capital for the loss of an old privilege. This considera- 
