I resume the biography of Bailly at the time when he quitted the Hotel de Ville after a magistracy of about two years.

On the 12th November, 1791, Bailly convoked the Council of the Commune, rendered an account of his administration, solemnly entreated those who thought themselves entitled to complain of him, to say so without reserve; so resolved was he to bow to any legitimate complaints; installed his successor Petion, and retired.  This separation did not lead to any of those heartfelt demonstrations from the co-labourers of the late Mayor, which are the true and the sweetest recompense to a good man.

I have sought for the hidden cause of such a constant and undisguised hostility towards the first Mayor of Paris.  I asked myself first, whether the magistrate’s manners had possibly excited the susceptibilities of the Eschevins.[14] The answer is decidedly in the negative.  Bailly showed in all the relations of life a degree of patience, a suavity, a deference to the opinions of others, that would have soothed the most irascible self-love.

Must we suspect jealousy to have been at work?  No, no; the persons who constituted the town-council were too obscure, unless they were mad, to attempt to vie in public consideration and glory with the illustrious author of the History of Astronomy, with the philosopher, the writer, the erudite scholar who belonged to our three principal academies, an honour that Fontenelle alone had enjoyed before him.

Let us say it aloud, for such is our conviction, nothing personal excited the evil proceedings, the acts of insubordination with which Bailly had daily to reproach his numerous assistants.  It is even presumable, that in his position, any one else would have had to register more numerous and more serious complaints.  Let us be truthful:  when the aristocracy of the ground-floor, according to the expression of one of the most illustrious members of the French Academy, was called by the revolutionary movements to replace the aristocracy of the first-floor, it became giddy.  Have I not, it said, conducted the business of the warehouse, the workshop, the counting-house, &c., with probity and success; why then should I not equally succeed in the management of public affairs?  And this swarm of new statesmen were in a hurry to commence work; hence all control was irksome to them, and each wished to be able to say on returning home, “I have framed such or such an act that will tie the hands of faction for ever; I have repressed this or that riot; I have, in short, saved the country by proposing such or such a measure for the public good, and by having it adopted.”  The pronoun I so agreeably tickles the ear of a man lately risen from obscurity.

What the thorough-bred Eschevin, whether new or old, dreads above every thing else, is specialties.  He has an insurmountable antipathy towards men, who have in the face of the world gained the honourable titles of historian, geometer, mechanician, astronomer, physician, chemist, or geologist, &c....  His desire, his will, is to speak on every thing.  He requires, therefore, colleagues who cannot contradict him.