By regulating his conduct on such fine generous maxims, a citizen does himself honour, but he exposes himself to fall under the blows of faction.
Bailly was still at Nantes on the 30th of June, 1793, when eighty thousand Vendeans, commanded by Cathelineau and Charette, went to besiege that city.
Let us imagine to ourselves the position of the President of the sitting of the “Jeu de Paume,” of the first Mayor of Paris, in a city besieged by the Vendeans! We cannot presume that the unfavourable opinion of the Convention under which he was labouring, and the rigorous surveillance to which he was subjected, would have saved him from harsh treatment if the town had been taken. No one can therefore be surprised that after the victory of Nanteans, our colleague hastened to follow out his project, formed a short time before, of withdrawing from the insurgent provinces.
Up to the beginning of July 1793, Melun had enjoyed perfect tranquillity. Bailly knew it through M. de Laplace, who, living retired in that chief town of the department, was there composing the immortal work in which the wonders of the heavens are studied with so much depth and genius. He also knew that the great geometer, hoping to be still more retired in a cottage on the banks of the Seine, and out of the town, was going to dispose of his house in Melun. It is easy to guess that Bailly would be charmed with the prospect of residing far away from political agitation, and near to his illustrious friend!
The arrangements were promptly made, and on the 6th of July, M. and Madame Bailly quitted Nantes in company with M. and Madame Villenave, who were going to Rennes.
At this same time, a division of the revolutionary army was marching to Melun. As soon as the terrible news was known, Madame Laplace wrote to Bailly, persuading him, under covert expressions, to give up the intended project. The house, she said, is at the water’s edge: there is extreme dampness in the rooms: Madame Bailly would die there. A letter so different from those that had preceded it, could not fail of its effect; such at least was the hope with which M. and Madame Laplace flattered themselves, when about the end of July they perceived, with inexpressible alarm, Bailly crossing the garden path. “Great God, you did not then understand our last letter!” exclaimed at the same instant our colleague’s two friends. “I understood perfectly,” Bailly replied with the greatest calm; “but on the one hand, the two servants who followed me to Nantes, having heard that I was going to be imprisoned, quitted me; on the other hand, if I am to be arrested, I wish it to be in a house that I have occupied some time. I will not be described in any act as an individual without a domicile!” Can it be said, after this, that great men are not subject to strange weaknesses?
These minute details will be my only answer to some culpable expressions that I have met with in a work very widely spread: “M. Laplace,” says the anonymous writer “knew all the secrets of geometry; but he had not the least notion of the state France was in, he therefore imprudently advised Bailly to go and join him.”