could not have prevented, since even the superhuman efforts of General Lafayette, commanding an armed force, proved futile.  I will add, that to spare M. de Crosne an arbitrary arrest, the imminent danger of which alas! was too evident in the death of Berthier, Bailly absented himself again from the Hotel de Ville on the night of the 22d to the 23d of July, to accompany the former Lieutenant of Police to a great distance from Paris.

There is not a more distressing spectacle than that of one honest man wrongfully attacking another honest man.  Gentlemen, let us never willingly leave the satisfaction and the advantage of it to the wicked.

To appreciate the actions of our predecessors with impartiality and justice, it would be indispensable to keep constantly before our eyes the list of unheard-of difficulties that the revolution had to surmount, and to remember the very restricted means of repression placed at the disposal of the authorities in the beginning.

The scarcity of food gave rise to many embarrassments, to many a crisis; but causes of quite another nature had not less influence on the march of events.

In his memoirs, Bailly speaks of the manoeuvres of a redoubtable faction labouring for ... under the name of the....  The names are blank.  A certain editor of the work filled up the lacunae.  I have not the same hardihood, I only wished to remark that Bailly had to combat at once both the spontaneous effervescence of the multitude, and the intrigues of a crowd of secret agents, who distributed money with a liberal hand.

Some day, said our colleague, the infernal genius who directed those intrigues and le bailleur de fonds will be known.  Although the proper names are wanting, it is certain that some persons inimical to the revolution urged it to deplorable excesses.

These enemies had collected in the capital thirty or forty thousand vagabonds.  What could be opposed to them?  The Tribunals?  They had no moral power, and were declared enemies to the revolution.  The National Guard?  It was only just formed; the officers scarcely knew each other, and moreover scarcely knew the men who were to obey them.  Was it at least permitted to depend on the regular armed force?  It consisted of six battalions of French Guards without officers; of six thousand soldiers who, from every part of France, had flocked singly to Paris, on reading in the newspapers the following expressions from General Lafayette:  “They talk of deserters!  The real deserters are those men who have not abandoned their standards.”  There were finally six hundred Swiss Guards in Paris, deserters from their regiments; for, let us speak freely, the celebrated monument of Lucerne will not prevent the Swiss themselves from being recognized by impartial and intelligent historians, as having experienced the revolutionary fever.

Those who, with such poor means of repression, flattered themselves that they could entirely prevent any disorder, in a town of seven or eight hundred thousand inhabitants in exasperation, must have been very blind.  Those, on the other hand, who attempt to throw the responsibility of the disorders on Bailly, would prove by this alone, that good people should always keep aloof from public affairs during a revolution.