240 | BAILLY: 
intelligent individual into the ‘path of justice and truth. 
Whenever innocence can be sacrificed with impunity, 
crime is not sure of succeeding. There is so great a 
difference between the death of a good man and that of 
a wicked man, that the multitude is incapable of estimat- 
ing it.” , 
Cannibals devouring their vanquished enemies seem to 
me less hideous, less contrary to nature, than those 
wretches, the refuse of the population of large towns, 
who, too often alas! have carried their ferocity so far, as 
to disturb. by their clamorous and infamous raillery the 
last moments of the unhappy victims about to be struck 
by the sword of the law. The more humiliating this 
picture of the degradation of the human species may be, 
the more we should beware of overcharging the colour- 
ing. With few exceptions, the historians of Bailly’s last 
agony appear to me to have forgotten this duty. Was 
the truth, the strict truth, not sufficiently distressing? 
Was it requisite, without any sort of proof, to impute to 
the mass of the people the infernal cynicism of cannibals? 
Should they lightly make just sentiments of disgust and 
indignation rest upon an immense class of citizens? I 
think not, Gentlemen, and I will therefore avoid the 
cruelty and poignancy of chaining the thoughts for a long 
time on such scenes; I will prove that by rendering the 
drama a little less atrocious, I have only sacrificed imag- 
inary details, which are the envenomed fruits of the 
spirit of the party. 
I will not shut my ears to the questions that already 
hum around me. People will say to me, What are your 
claims for daring to modify a page of our revolutionary 
history, on which every one seemed agreed? What right 
have you to weaken contemporary testimonies, you, who 
