Bailly recalls to mind with sensibility, in his memoirs, the testimonies of esteem that he obtained through his difficult and laborious presidency.  The 3d of July, on the proposition of the Duke de la Rochefoucauld and of the Archbishop of Bordeaux, the National Assembly sent a deputation to their illustrious ex-president, to thank him (these are the precise words) “for his noble, wise, and firm conduct.”  The electoral body of Bordeaux had been beforehand with these homages.  The Chamber of Commerce of that town, at the same time, decided that the portrait of the great citizen should decorate their hall of meeting.  The Academy of Sciences, the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles Lettres, did not remain insensible to the glory that one of their members had acquired in the career of politics, and testified it by numerous deputations.  Finally, Marmontel, in the name of the French Academy, expressed to Bailly “how proud that assembly was to count, among its members an Aristides that no one was tired of calling the Just.”

I shall not excite surprise, I hope, by adding, after such brilliant testimonies of sympathy, that the inhabitants of Chaillot celebrated the return of Bailly amongst them by fetes, and fireworks, and that even the curate of the parish and the churchwardens, unwilling to be surpassed by their fellow-citizens, nominated the historian of antediluvian astronomy honorary churchwarden.  I will, at all events, repress the smile that might arise from such private reminiscences, by reminding the reader that a man’s moral character is better appreciated by his neighbours, to whom he shows himself daily without disguise, than that of more considerable persons, who are only seen on state occasions, and in official costume.

BAILLY BECOMES MAYOR OF PARIS.—­SCARCITY.—­MARAT DECLARES HIMSELF INIMICAL TO THE MAYOR.—­EVENTS OF THE 6TH OF OCTOBER.

The Bastille had been taken on the 14th of July.  That event, on which, during upwards of half a century, there have been endless discussions, on opposite sides, was characterized in the following way, in the address to the National Assembly, drawn up by M. Moreau de Saint Mery, in the name of the City Committee:—­

“Yesterday will be for ever memorable by the taking of a citadel, consequent on the Governor’s perfidy.  The bravery of the people was irritated by the breaking of the word of honour.  This act (the strongest proof that the nation who knows best how to obey, is jealous of its just liberties,) has been followed by incidents that from the public misfortunes might have been foreseen.”

Lally Tollendal said to the Parisians, on the 15th of July:  “In the disastrous circumstances that have just occurred, we did not cease to participate in your griefs; and we have also participated in your anger; it was just.”