246 BAILLY. 9 



off daily, it was only by the substitution of the following 

 words : " Esplanade du Champ de Mars," for the usual 

 designation of " Place de la Revolution." Now, the Rev- 

 olutionary Tribunal has deserved many anathemas, but 

 I never remarked its being reproached with not having 

 known how to enforce obedience. 



I felt myself relieved from an immense weight, Gen- 

 tlemen, when I could dispel from my thoughts the image 

 of a melancholy march on foot of two hours, because 

 with it there disappeared two hours of corporeal ill-usage, 

 which, according to those same accounts, our virtuous 

 colleague must have endured from the Conciergerie to 

 the Champ de Mars. 



An illustrious writer asserts that they conducted Bailly 

 to the Place de la Revolution, that the scaffold there was 

 taken to pieces on the multitude demanding it, and that 

 the victim was then led to the Champ de Mars. This 

 relation is not correct. The sentence expressed in pos- 

 itive terms, that, as an exception, the Square of the Rev- 

 olution was not to be the scene of Bailly's execution. 

 The procession went direct to the place designated. 



The historian already quoted affirms that the scaffold 

 on being put up again on the bank of the Seine was 

 erected on a heap of rubbish ; that this operation lasted 

 some hours, and that Bailly meanwhile was drawn round 

 the Champ de Mars several times. 



These promenades are imaginary. Those men who on 

 the arrival of the lugubrious procession vociferated that 

 the presence of the old Mayor of Paris would soil the 

 Champ de la Federation, could not the next minute force 

 him to make the circuit of it. In fact, the illustrious victim 

 remained in the road. The cruel idea, so knowingly at- 

 tributed to the actors of those hideous scenes, to raise the 



