174 . BAILLY. 
A deputation of twenty members, having Bailly at 
their head, was received on the 6th. The President 
thus expressed himself: “ Your faithful Communes are 
deeply moved by the circumstance in which your maj- 
esty has the goodness to receive their deputation, and 
_ they take the liberty to address to you the expression of 
all their regrets, and of their respectful sensibility.” 
Such language can, I think, be delivered without un- 
easiness to the appreciation of all good men. 
Let us be correct ; the Communes did not obtain at 
once the audience that they demanded on account of the 
difficulties of the ceremonial. They would have wished 
to make the Third Estate speak kneeling. “ This cus- 
tom,” said M. de Barentin, “has existed from time im- 
memorial, and if the king wished... .” “And if 
twenty-five millions of men do not wish it,” exclaimed 
Bailly, interrupting the minister, “ where are the means 
to force them?” “The two privileged orders,” replied 
the Guard of the Seals, somewhat stunned by the apos- 
trophe, “no longer require the Third Estate to bend the 
knee; but, after having formerly possessed immense 
privileges in the ceremonial, they limit themselves now 
to asking some difference. This difference I cannot 
find.” “Do not take the trouble to seek for it,” replied 
the President hastily: “however slight the difference 
might be, the Communes will not suffer it.” 
This digression was required through a grave and 
recent error. ‘The memory of Bailly will not suffer by 
it, since it has afforded me the opportunity of establish- 
ing, beyond any reply, that in our fellow academician a 
noble firmness was on occasions allied to urbanity, mild- 
ness, and politeness. But what will be said of the pue- 
rilities which I have been obliged to recall, of the mean 
