HIS OWN TRIAL. 229 
with sufficient evidence to justify the proclamation of 
martial law, and especially the putting it into practice? 
I say it, Gentlemen, with deep grief, these problems 
will be answered in the negative by whoever takes the 
trouble to analyze without passion, and without precon- 
ceived opinions, some authentic documents, which people 
in general seem to have made it a point to leave in ob- 
livion. But I hasten to add, that considering the question 
as to intention, Bailly will continue to appear, after this 
examination, quite as humane, quite as honourable, quite 
as pure as we have found him to be in the other phases 
of a public and private life, which might serve as a model. 
In the best epochs of the National Assembly, no one 
who belonged to it would have dared to maintain, that to 
draw up and sign a petition, whatever might be the object 
of it, were rebellious acts. Never, at that time, would 
the President of that great Assembly have called down 
hate, public vengeance, or a sanguinary repression upon 
those who attempted, said Charles Lameth, in the sitting 
of the 16th of July, “to oppose their individual will to 
the law, which is an expression of the national will.” 
The right of petition seemed as if it ought to be absolute, 
even if contrary to sanctioned and promulgated laws in 
full action, and even more so against legislative arrange- 
ments still under discussion, or scarcely voted. 
The petitioners of the Champ de Mars asked the Con- 
stituent Assembly to revise a decree that they had issued 
two days before. We have no occasion to examine 
whether the act was reasonable, opportune, dictated by 
an enlightened view of the public good. The question 
is simple; in soliciting the Assembly to revise a decree, 
they violated no law. Perhaps it will be thought that. 
the petitioners at least committed an unusual act, con- 
