RESIGNS THE PRESIDENTIAL CHAIR. 177 
ate, that Mirabeau addressed from his place the well- 
known apostrophe to M. de Brézé. The President 
disapproved both of the basis and the form of it; he 
felt that there was no sufficient motive; for, said he, the 
Grand Master of the Ceremonies made use of no menace ; 
he had not in any way insinuated that there was an in- 
tention to resort to-force; he had not, above all, spoken 
of bayonets. At all events, there is an essential differ- 
ence between the words of Mirabeau as related in almost 
all the Histories of the Revolution, and those reported 
by Bailly. According to our illustrious colleague the 
impetuous tribune exclaimed, “ Go tell those who sent 
you, that the force of bayonets can do nothing against 
the will of the nation.” This is, to my mind, much 
more energetic than the common version. ‘The expres- 
sion, “ We will only retire by the force of bayonets!” 
had always appeared to me, notwithstanding the admira- 
tion conceded to it, to imply only a resistance which 
would cease on the arrival of a corporal and half-a-dozen 
soldiers. 
Bailly quitted the chair of President of the National 
Assembly on the 2d of July. His scientific celebrity, 
his virtue, his conciliating spirit, had not been superfluous 
in habituating certain men to see a member of the Com- 
munes preside over an assembly in which there was a 
prince of the blood, a prince of the church, the greatest 
lords of the kingdom, and all the high dignitaries of the 
clergy. The first person named to succeed to Bailly was 
the Duke d’Orléans. After his refusal, the Assembly 
chose the Archbishop of Vienne (Pompignan). 
Bailly recalls to mind with sensibility, in his memoirs, 
the testimonies of esteem that he obtained through his 
difficult and laborious presidency. The 3d of July, on 
8* 
