224 BAILLY. 



he could not but set Bailly at liberty, under pain of for- 

 feiture. Vain efforts ! To avoid a bloody catastrophe, it 

 was necessary to promise that reference would be made 

 to Paris, and that in the mean time he should be guarded 

 a vue in his own house. 



The surveillance, perhaps purposely, was not at all 

 strict ; to escape would have been very easy. Bailly 

 utterly discarded the notion. He would not at any price 

 have compromised M. Tarbe, nor even his guard. 



An order from the Committee of Public Safety en- 

 joined the authorities of Melun to transfer Bailly to one 

 of the prisons of the capital. On the day of departure, 

 Madame Laplace paid a visit to our unfortunate colleague. 

 She represented to him again the possibility of escape. 

 The first scruples no longer existed ; the escort was 

 already waiting in the street. But Bailly was inflexible. 

 He felt perfectly safe. Madame Laplace held her son in 

 her arms ; Bailly took the opportunity of turning the 

 conversation to the education of children. He treated 

 the subject, to which he might well have been thought a 

 stranger, with a remarkable superiority, and ended even 

 with several amusing anecdotes that would deserve a 

 place in the witty and comic gallery of "les Enfants 

 terribles." 



On arriving at Paris, Bailly was imprisoned at the 

 Madelonnettes, and some days after at La Force. They 

 there granted him a room, where his wife and his 

 nephews were permitted to visit him. 



Bailly had undergone only one examination of little 

 importance, when he was summoned as a witness in the 

 trial of the queen. 



