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HIS ADMINISTRATION AS MAYOR. 205 
agreeing with all religious opinions, the country is chiefly 
indebted for it to the intelligent firmness of Bailly. 
The unfortunate beings for whom all public men should 
feel most solicitous, are those prisoners who are awaiting 
in prison the decrees of the courts of justice. Bailly took 
care not to neglect such aduty. At the end of 1790, the 
old tribunals had no moral power; they could no longer 
act; the new ones were not yet created. This state of 
affairs distracted the mind of our colleague. On the 
18th of November, he expressed his grief to the Na- 
tional Assembly, in terms full of sensibility and kindness. 
I should be culpable if I left them in oblivion. 
“ Gentlemen, the prisons are full. The innocent are 
awaiting their justification, and the criminals an end to 
their remorse. All breathe an unwholesome air, and 
disease will pronounce terrible decrees. Despair dwells 
there: Despair says, either give me death, or judge me. 
When we visit those prisons, that is what the fathers of 
the poor and the unfortunate hear; this is what it is their 
duty to repeat to the fathers of their country. We must 
tell them that in those asylums of crime, of misery, and 
of every grief, time is infinite in its duration; a month is 
a century, a month is an abyss the sight of which is 
frightful. . .... We ask of the tribunals to empty the 
prisons by the justification of the innocent, or by exam- 
ples of justice.” 
Does it not appear to you, Gentlemen, that calm times 
may occasionally derive excellent lessons, and, moreover, 
lessons expressed in very good language, from our revo- 
lutionary epoch ? 
