letters against the old official adversaries of his bad experiments, his
absurd theories, his lucubrations devoid both of erudition and of
talent; letters in which the Monges, the Laplaces, the Lavoisiers are
treated with such an entire neglect of justice and of truth, and with
such a cynical spirit, that my respect for this assembly prevents my
quoting a single expression.

It was not then only the Mayor of Paris whom the pretended friend of the
people persecuted; it was also the Academician Bailly. But the
illustrious philosopher, the virtuous magistrate, gave no hold for
positive and decided criminations. The hideous pamphleteer understood
this well; and therefore he adopted vague insinuations, that allowed of
no possible refutation, a method which, we may remark by the way, has
not been without imitators. Marat exclaimed every day: "Let Bailly send
in his accounts!" and the most powerful figure of rhetoric, as Napoleon
said, repetition, finally inspires doubts in a stupid portion of the
public, in some feeble, ignorant, and credulous minds in the Council of
the Commune; and the scrupulous magistrate wished, in fact, to send in
his accounts. Here they are in two lines: Bailly never had the handling
of any public funds. He left the Hotel de Ville, after having spent
there two thirds of his patrimony. If his functions had been long
protracted, he would have retired completely ruined. Before the Commune
assigned him any salary, the expenses of our colleague in charities
already exceeded 30,000 livres.

That was, Gentlemen, the final result. The details would be more
striking, and the name of Bailly would ennoble them. I could show our
colleague entering only once with his wife, to regulate the furnishing
of the apartments that the Commune assigned him; rejecting all that had
the appearance of luxury or even of elegance; to replace sets of china
by sets of earthenware, new carpets by the half-used ones of M. de
Crosnes, writing tables of mahogany by writing tables of walnut, &c. But
all this would appear an indirect criticism, which is far from my
thoughts. From the same motives, I will not say, that inimical to all
sinecures, of all plurality of appointments, when the functions are not
fulfilled, the Mayor of Paris, since he no longer regularly attended the
meetings of the National Assembly, no longer fingered the pay of a
deputy, and that this was proved, to the great confusion of the idiots,
whose minds had been dist