HIS ADMINISTRATION AS MAYOR. 199 
under those cruel circumstances, an aspersion that I read 
with surprise and grief. Foulon was detained in the 
Hétel de Ville. Bailly went down into the square, and 
succeeded for a moment in calming the multitude. “I 
did not imagine,” said the Mayor in his memoirs, “ that 
they could have forced the Hotel de Ville, a well-guarded 
post, and an object of respect to all the citizens. I 
therefore thought the prisoner in perfect safety; I did 
not doubt but the waves of this storm would finally 
subside, and I departed.” 
The honourable author of the History of the Reign of 
Louis XVI. opposes to this passage the following words 
taken from the official minutes of the Hotel de Ville: 
“The electors (those who had accompanied Bailly out to 
the square) reported in the Hall the certainty that the 
calm would not last long.” -The new historian adds: 
“‘ How could the Mayor alone labour under this delusion ? 
Tt is too evident, that on such a day, the public tranquillity 
was much too uncertain, to allow of the chief magistrate 
of the town absenting himself without deserving the re- 
proach of weakness.” ‘The remainder of the passage 
shows too evidently, that in the author’s estimation, weak- 
ness here was synonymous with cowardice. 
It is against this, Gentlemen, that I protest with heart- 
felt earnestness. Bailly absented himself because he did 
not think that the Hétel de Ville could be forced. The 
electors in the passage quoted do not enunciate a different 
opinion: where then is the contradiction ? 
Bailly deceived himself in this expectation, for the 
multitude burst into the Hotel de Ville. We will grant 
that there was an error of judgment in this; but nothing 
in the world authorizes us to call in question the courage 
of the Mayor. 
