An illustrious writer asserts that they conducted Bailly to the Place de la Revolution, that the scaffold there was taken to pieces on the multitude demanding it, and that the victim was then led to the Champ de Mars.  This relation is not correct.  The sentence expressed in positive terms, that, as an exception, the Square of the Revolution was not to be the scene of Bailly’s execution.  The procession went direct to the place designated.

The historian already quoted affirms that the scaffold on being put up again on the bank of the Seine was erected on a heap of rubbish; that this operation lasted some hours, and that Bailly meanwhile was drawn round the Champ de Mars several times.

These promenades are imaginary.  Those men who on the arrival of the lugubrious procession vociferated that the presence of the old Mayor of Paris would soil the Champ de la Federation, could not the next minute force him to make the circuit of it.  In fact, the illustrious victim remained in the road.  The cruel idea, so knowingly attributed to the actors of those hideous scenes, to raise the fatal instrument on a heap of rubbish on the river bank, so that Bailly might in his last moments see the house at Chaillot where he had composed his works, was so far from occurring to the mind of the multitude, that the sentence was executed in the moat between two walls.

I have not thought it my duty, Gentlemen, to represent the condemned man forced to carry some parts of the scaffold himself, because he had his hands tied behind his back.  In my recital nobody waves the burning red flag over Bailly’s head, because this barbarity is not mentioned in the narratives, otherwise so shocking, drawn up by some friends of our colleague shortly after the event; nor have I consented, with the author of The History of the French Revolution, to represent one of the soldiers forming the escort asking the question that led the victim to make, we must say so, the theatrical answer:  “Yes, I tremble, but it is with cold;” but the more touching answer, so characteristic of Bailly; “Yes, my friend, I am cold.”

Far be it from me, Gentlemen, to suppose that no soldier in the world would be capable of a despicable and culpable act.  I do not ask, assuredly, the suppression of all courts-martial; but to be induced to attribute to a man dressed in a military uniform, a personal part in this frightful drama, proofs or contemporary testimonies would be required, of which I have found no trace.

If the fact had occurred, its results would certainly have become known to the public.  I take to witness an event which is found related in Bailly’s Memoirs.

On the 22d of July, 1789, on the square of the Hotel de Ville, a dragoon with his sabre mutilated the corpse of Berthier.  His comrades, feeling outraged by this barbarity, all showed themselves instantly resolved to fight him in succession, and so wash out in his blood the disgrace he had thrown on the whole corps.  The dragoon fought that same evening and was killed.