HIS EXECUTION. 241 



at the time of Bailly's death, were scarcely born ; you, 

 who lived in an obscure valley of the Pyrenees, two 

 hundred and twenty leagues from the capital ? 



These questions do not embarrass me at all. In short, 

 I do not ask that the relation of what seems to me to be 

 the expression of the truth, should be adopted upon my 

 word. I enumerate my proofs, I express my doubts. 

 Within these limits there is no one but has claims to bring 

 forward ; the discussion is open to all the world, the pub- 

 lic will pronounce its definitive judgment. 



As a general thesis, I will add that by concentrating 

 our researches on one circumscribed and special object, 

 we have a better chance of seeing it correctly and know- 

 ing it well, all other things being equal, than by scatter- 

 ing our attention in all directions. 



As to the merit of contemporaneous narratives, it seems 

 to me very dubious. Political passions do not allow us 

 to see objects in their real dimensions, nor in their true 

 forms, nor in their natural colours. Moreover, have not 

 unpublished and very valuable documents come to shed 

 bright colours, just where the spirit of party had spread a 

 thick veil ? 



The account that Riouffe gave of the death of Bailly 

 has almost blindly led all the historians of our revolution. 

 "What does it consist of " at bottom." The prisoner of la 

 Conciergerie said it himself; of tales related by execu- 

 tioners' valets, repeated by turnkeys. 



I would willingly allow this account to be set against 

 me, notwithstanding the horrid sewer from which Riouffe 

 had been obliged to draw, if it were not evident that this 

 clever writer saw all the revolutionary events through the 

 just anger that an ardent and active young man must feel 



after an iniquitous imprisonment ; if this current of senti- 



11 



