give a flat contradiction.  I will acknowledge, Gentlemen, I think that I have even a right to decline the epithet of “unfortunate,” which one of our most respectable colleagues in the French Academy has pronounced relative to this celebrated phrase, while doing justice at the same time to the sentiments of the author.  The poison contained in the few words that I have quoted, was very inoffensive, since more than a year passed without any courtier, though furnished like a microscope with, all the monarchical susceptibilities, beginning to suspect its existence.

The Mayor of Paris was at the Hotel de Ville in the midst of those same Parisian citizens who inspired him, a few months before, with the mortifying reflection already quoted:  “I remarked in the Assembly of Electors a dislike to literary people and Academicians.”  The feeling did not appear to be changed.

The political movement in 1789, had been preceded by two very serious physical perturbations which had great influence on the march of events.  Every one is aware, that the excessively rigorous winter of 1788-89 was the cause of severe sufferings to the people.  But it may not be so generally known, that on the 13th of July, 1788, a fall of hail of unprecedented size and quantity, in a few hours completely ravaged the two parallel zones lying between the department of the Charente and the frontiers of the Pays-Bas, and that in consequence of this frightful hail, the wheat partly failed, both in the north and in the west of France, until after the harvest of 1789.

The scarcity was already severely felt, when Bailly on the 15th of July accepted the appointment of Mayor of Paris.  That day, it had been ascertained, from an examination of the quantity of corn at the Market Hall and of the private stocks of the bakers, that the supply of grain and flour would be entirely exhausted in three days.  The next day, the 16th of July, all the overseers in the victualling administration had disappeared.  This flight, the natural consequence of the terrible intimidation that hovered over those who were in any way connected with the furnishing of provisions, interrupted the operations which had been commenced, and exposed the city of Paris to famine.

Bailly, a magistrate of only one day’s standing, considered that the multitude understands nothing, hears nothing when bread fails; that a scarcity, either real or supposed, is the great promoter of riots; that all classes of the population grant their sympathy to whoever cries, I am hungry; that this lamentable cry soon unites individuals of all ages, of both sexes, of every condition, in one common sentiment of blind fury; that no human power could maintain order and tranquillity in the bosom of a population that dreads the want of food; he therefore resolved to devote his days and his nights to provisioning the capital; to deserve, as he himself said, the title of the Father nourisher of the Parisians,—­that title of which he showed himself always so proud, after having painfully gained it.