HIS EXECUTION. - 945 
soiled by the presence and by the blood of him whom they 
called a great criminal. Upon their demand (I had 
almost said their orders), the scaffold was taken down 
again, and carried piecemeal into one of the fosses, where 
it was put up afresh. Bailly remained the stern witness 
of these frightful preparations, and of these infernal 
clamours. Not one complaint escaped from his lips. 
Rain had been falling all the morning; it was cold; it 
drenched the body, and especially the bare head, of the 
venerable man. A wretch saw that he was shivering, 
and cried out to him, “ Thou tremblest, Bailly.”—* I am 
cold, my friend,” mildly answered the victim. These 
were his last words. 
Bailly descended into the moat, where the executioner 
burnt before him the red flag of the 17th July; he then 
with a firm step mounted the scaffold. Let us have the 
courage to say it, when the head of our venerable col- 
league fell, the paid witnesses whom this horrid execution 
had assembled on the Champ de Mars burst into infamous 
acclamations. 
T had announced a faithful recital of the martyrdom of 
Bailly; I have kept my word. I said that I should ban- 
ish many circumstances without reality, and that the 
drama would thus become less atrocious. If I am to trust 
your aspect, I have not accomplished the second part of 
my promise. ‘The imagination perhaps cannot reach be- 
yond the cruel facts on which I have been obliged to 
dilate. You ask what I can have retrenched from former 
relations, whilst what remains is so deplorable. 
The order for execution addressed by Fouquier Tin- 
ville to the executioner has been seen by several persons 
now living. They all declare that if it differs from the 
numerous orders of a similar nature that the wretch sent 
