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 a duty. 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 ? 



