Contemporary accounts then, even those of Riouffe, may be submitted without irreverence to earnest discussion.  When a tenth part of the funds annually devoted to researches in and examination of old chronicles, is applied to making extracts from the registers relative to the French Revolution, we shall certainly see many other hideous circumstances that revolt the soul, disappear from our contemporary history.  Look at the massacres of September!  The historians most in vogue report the number of victims that fell in that butchery to have been from six to twelve thousand; whilst a writer who has lately taken the trouble to analyze the prison registers in the gaoler’s books, cannot make the whole amount to one thousand.  Even this number is very large; but, for my part, I thank the author of this recent publication for having reduced the number of assassinations in September to less than a tenth part of what had been generally admitted.

When the discussion which I have here undertaken becomes known to the public, it will be seen how many and how important are the retrenchments to be made from that lugubrious page of our history.  Another important circumstance may be appreciated, which appears to me to arise from all these facts.  After having weighed my proofs, every one I hope will join me in seeing that the wretches around the scaffold of Bailly were but the refuse of the population, fulfilling for pay the part that had been assigned them by three or four wealthy cannibals.

The sentence pronounced against Bailly by the Revolutionary Tribunal was to be executed on the 12th of November, 1793.  The reminiscences recently published by a fellow-prisoner of our colleague, the reminiscences of M. Beugnot, will enable us to penetrate into the Conciergerie, on the morning of that inauspicious day.

Bailly had risen early, after having slept as usual, the sleep of the just.  He took some chocolate, and conversed a long time with his nephew.  The young man was a prey to despair, but the illustrious prisoner preserved all his serenity.  The previous evening in returning from the Tribunal, he remarked, with admirable coolness, though springing from a certain disquietude, “that the spectators of his trial had been strongly excited against him.  I fear,” he added, “that the mere execution of the sentence will no longer satisfy them, which might be dangerous in its consequences.  Perhaps the police will provide against it.”  These reflections having recurred to Bailly’s mind on the 12th, he asked for, and drank hastily, two cups of coffee without milk.  These precautions were a sinister omen.  To his friends who surrounded him at this awful moment, and were sobbing aloud, he said, “Be calm; I have rather a difficult journey to perform, and I distrust my constitution.  Coffee excites and reanimates; I hope, however, to reach the end properly.”