IMAGINARY DETAILS OF HIS EXECUTION. 247 



fatal instrument on a heap of rubbish on the river bank, 

 so that Bailly might in his last moments see the house at 

 Chaillot where he had composed his works, was so far 

 from occurring to the mind of the multitude, that the 

 sentence was executed in the moat between two walls. 



I have not thought it my duty, Gentlemen, to represent 

 the condemned man forced to carry some parts of the 

 scaffold himself, because he had his hands tied behind his 

 back. In my recital nobody waves the burning red fla<* 



i/ J O 



over Bailly's head, because this barbarity is not men- 

 tioned in the narratives, otherwise so shocking, drawn 

 up by some friends of our colleague shortly after the 

 event ; nor have I consented, with the author of The, 

 History of the French Revolution, to represent one of the 

 soldiers forming the escort asking the question that led 

 the victim to make, we must say so, the theatrical an- 

 swer : " Yes, I tremble, but it is with cold ; " but the 

 more touching answer, so characteristic of Bailly ; " Yes, 

 my friend, I am cold." 



Far be it from me, Gentlemen, to suppose that no 

 soldier in the world would be capable of a despicable 

 and culpable act. I do not ask, assuredly, the suppres- 

 sion of all courts-martial ; but to be induced to attribute 

 to a man dressed in a military uniform, a personal part 

 in this frightful drama, proofs or contemporary testi- 

 monies would be required, of which I have found no 

 trace. 



If the fact had occurred, its results would certainly 

 have become known to the public. I take to witness an 

 event which is found related in Bailly's Memoirs. 



On the 22d of July, 1789, on the square of the Hotel 

 de Yille, a dragoon with his sabre mutilated the corpse of 

 Berthier. His comrades, feeling outraged by this bar- 



