HIS ARREST AT MELUN. 223 



replied with the greatest calm ; " but on the one hand, 

 the two servants who followed me to Nantes, havin^ 



' O 



heard that I was going to be imprisoned, quitted me ; on 

 the other hand, If I am to be arrested, I wish it to be in 

 a house that I have occupied some time. I will not be 

 described in any act as an individual without a domi- 

 cile ! " Can it be said, after this, that great men are not 

 subject to strange weaknesses ? 



These minute details will be my only answer to some 

 culpable expressions that I have met with in a work 

 very widely spread : " M. Laplace," says the anonymous 

 writer " knew all the secrets of geometry ; but he had 

 not the least notion of the state France was in, he there- 

 fore imprudently advised Bailly to go and join him." 



What is to be here deplored as regards imprudence, is, 

 that a writer, without exactly knowing the facts, should 

 authoritatively pronounce such severe sentences against 

 one of the most illustrious ornaments of our country. 



Bailly did not even enjoy the puerile satisfaction of 

 takino- rank among the domiciled citizens of Melun. For 



O O 



two days after his arrival in that town, a soldier of the 

 revolutionary army having recognized him, brutally 

 ordered him to accompany him to the municipality : " I 

 am going there," coolly replied Bailly ; " you may follow 

 me there." 



The municipal body of Melun had at that time an 

 honest and very courageous man at its head, M. Tarbe 

 des Sablons. This virtuous magistrate endeavoured to 

 prove to the multitude, (with which the Hotel de Ville 

 was immediately filled by the news, rapidly propagated, 

 of the arrest of the old Mayor of Paris,) that the pass- 

 ports granted at Nantes, countersigned at Rennes, showed 

 nothing irregular ; that according to the terms of the law, 



