8 Fred Morrozu Fling 



representative of the Third Estate to Versailles, with (2) the 

 meetings of the Third Estate and of the National Assembly at 

 Versailles until July 15 when he was chosen mayor of Paris,^ 

 and, finally, with (3) the affairs of the city government of Paris 

 until October 2, 1789, when his record ends. Bailly was secre- 

 tary of the electors in Paris, president of the assembly in Ver- 

 sailles, and at the head of the Paris government all through the 

 period dealt with in the second volume of the Memoircs. He 

 certainly had as excellent opportunities to see what was taking 

 place as any man connected with the events described, and the 

 part that he took in the events should have impressed the more 

 important details upon his memory, 



Bailly not only had unusual opportunities to see and to hear, 

 but he is what might be called a good witness. He was in sym- 

 pathy with the revolution, but with a moderate revolution, the 

 revolution that substituted a constitutional monarchy for the 

 arbitrary rule of irresponsible ministers.- He was an astrono- 

 mer whose mind had been abruptly turned from astral to ter- 

 restrial affairs. His reputation was made, however, long before 

 the meeting of the estates in 1789.^ He was born in 1736, at 

 the Louvre where his father held the place of "guard of the 

 pictures of the king," a position that seems to have been heredi- 

 tary in the family. The father wished his son to succeed him, 

 and young Bailly was given lessons in drawing. His real in- 

 clinations showed themselves, however, when he received instruc- 

 tion in mathematics from a M. de Moncarville and later in 

 astronomy from Claircault and the Abbe Lacaille. At the age 

 of sixteen, he wrote two tragedies and later competed for prizes 

 offered by different academies, his clogc of Leibnitz being 

 crowned by the Academy of Berlin in 1769. His reputation 

 was not due, to any large degree, to these literary exercises. 



^Ibid., I, pp. 71-395; II, pp. I-ll. 



2 " Dans un moment ou le peuple s'dtait souleve tout eutier, non pas 

 centre le roi, mais centre I'autorit^ arbitraire,*' Meinoiies de Bai/lv, II, p. 

 284. Also I, pp. 170, 191. 



8 The data for this notice of the life of Bailly, I have taken from the 

 Notice siir la vie de Bailly, prefixed to volume one of the Meinoires, and 

 from the notes supplied to the editors by the brother of Bailly and prefixed 

 to volume three. 



338 



