HIS POSTHUMOUS MEMOIR. 193 



A GLANCE AT THE POSTHUMOUS MEMOIR OF BAILLY. 



Bailly's Memoirs have thus far served me as a guide 

 and check ; now that this resource fails me, let us refer 

 to his posthumous work. 



I could only consult those Memoirs as far as they 

 related to the public or private life of our colleague. 

 Historians may consult them in a more general point of 

 view. They will find some valuable facts in them, 

 related without prejudice ; ample matter for new and 

 fruitful reflections on the way in which revolutions are 

 generated, increase, and lead to catastrophes. Bailly is 

 less positive, less absolute, less slashing, than the generality 

 of his contemporaries, even respecting those events in 

 which circumstances assigned to him the principal part 

 to be acted ; hence when he points out some low intrigue, 

 in distinct and categorical terms, he inspires full confi- 

 dence. 



When the occasion will allow of it, Bailly praises with 

 enthusiasm ; a noble action fills him with joy ; he puts it 

 together and relates it with relish. This disposition of 

 mind is sufficiently rare to deserve mention. 



The day, still far off, when we shall finally recognize 

 that our great revolution presented, even in the interior, 

 even during the most cruel epochs, something besides 

 anarchical and sanguinary scenes : the day when, like 

 the intrepid fishermen in the Gulf of Persia and on the 

 coasts of Ceylon, a zealous and impartial writer will con- 

 sent to plunge head-foremost into the ocean of facts of all 

 sorts, of which our fathers were witnesses, and exclusively 

 seize the pearls, disdainfully rejecting the mud, Bailly's 

 Memoirs will furnish a glorious contingent to this national 

 work. Two or three quotations will explain my ideas, 



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