256 BAILLY. 



Bailly, after so many poignant agitations and unexam- 

 pled misfortunes, all that was left of strength of mind 

 and power of intellect. A strange incident also aggra- 

 vated the sadness of Madame Bailly's situation. On a 

 day of trouble, during her husband's lifetime, she had 

 placed the assignats resulting from the sale of their 

 house at Chaillot, amounting to about thirty thousand 

 francs, in the wadding of a dress. The enfeebled mem- 

 ory of the unfortunate widow did not recall to her the 

 existence of this treasure, even in the time of her great- 

 est distress. When the age of the material which had 

 secreted them began to reveal them to daylight, they 

 were no longer of any value. 



The widow of the author of one of the best works of 

 the age, of the learned member of our three great acad- 

 emies, of the first President of the National Assembly, 

 of the first Mayor of Paris, found herself thus reduced, 

 by an unheard-of turn of fortune, to implore help from 

 public pity. It was the geometer Cousin, member of this 

 academy, who by his incessant solicitations got Madame 

 Bailly's name inserted at the Board of Charity in his 

 arrondissement. The support was distributed in kind. 

 Cousin used to receive the articles at the Hotel de Ville, 

 where he was a Municipal Councillor, and carried them 

 himself to the street de la Sourdiere. It was, in short, 

 in the street de la Sourdiere that Madame Bailly had 

 obtained two rooms gratis, in the house of a compassion- 

 ate person, whose name I very much regret not having 

 learnt. Does it not appear to you, Gentlemen, that the 

 academician Cousin, who crossed the whole of Paris, 

 with the bread under his arm and the meat and the 

 candle, intended for the unfortunate widow of an illustri- 

 ous colleague, did himself more honour than if he had 



