240 BAILLY. 



intelligent individual into the path of justice and truth. 

 Whenever innocence can be sacrificed with impunity, 

 crime is not sure of succeeding. There is so great a 

 difference between the death of a good man and that of 

 a wicked man, that the multitude is incapable of estimat- 

 ing it." 



Cannibals devouring their vanquished enemies seem to 

 me less hideous, less contrary to nature, than those 

 wretches, the refuse of the population of large towns, 

 who, too often alas ! have carried their ferocity so far, as 

 to disturb by their clamorous and infamous raillery the 

 last moments of the unhappy victims about to be struck 

 by the sword of the law. The more humiliating this 

 picture of the degradation of the human species may be, 

 the more we should beware of overcharging the colour- 

 ing. With few exceptions, the historians of Bailly's last 

 agony appear to me to have forgotten this duty. Was 

 the truth, the strict truth, not sufficiently distressing? 

 Was it requisite, without any sort of proof, to impute to 

 the mass of the people the infernal cynicism of cannibals? 

 Should they lightly make just sentiments of disgust and 

 indignation rest upon an immense class of citizens ? I 

 think not, Gentlemen, and I will therefore avoid the 

 cruelty and poignancy of chaining the thoughts for a long 

 time on such scenes ; I will prove that by rendering the 

 drama a little less atrocious, I have only sacrificed imag- 

 inary details, which are the envenomed fruits of the 

 spirit of the party. 



I will not shut my ears to the questions that already 

 hum around me. People will say to me, What are your 

 claims for daring to modify a page of our revolutionary 

 history, on which every one seemed agreed ? What right 

 have you to weaken contemporary testimonies, you, who 



