ess men.

Vain efforts; the anger of the councillors, confined since the morning
at the Hotel de Ville, carried the day over the enlightened opinion of
those who had been sent scrupulously to study the state of affairs, who
had mixed in the crowd, who returned after having reassured it by
promises.

I might invoke the testimony of one of my honourable colleagues. Led by
the fine weather, and somewhat also by curiosity, towards the Champ de
Mars, he was enabled to observe all; and he has assured me that there
never was a meeting which showed less turbulence or seditious spirit;
that especially the women and children were very numerous. Is it not,
besides, perfectly proved now, that on the morning of the 17th July, the
Jacobin club, by means of printed placards, disavowed any intention of
petitioning; and that the influential men of the Jacobins and of the
Cordeliers,--those men whose presence might have given to this concourse
the dangerous character of a riot,--not only did not appear there, but
had started in the night for the country?

By thus connecting together all the circumstances whence it is proved
that martial law was proclaimed and put in practice on the 17th of July
without legitimate motives, a most terrible responsibility seems at
first sight to be cast on the memory of Bailly. But reassure yourselves,
Gentlemen; the events which are now grouped together, and are exhibited
to our eyes with complete evidence, were not known on that inauspicious
day at the Hotel de Ville, until they had been distorted by the spirit
of party.

In the month of July, 1791, after the king had returned from Varennes,
the monarchy and the republic began for the first time to be dangerously
opposed to each other; in an instant passion took the place of cool
reason in the minds of the respective partisans of the two different
forms of government. The terrible formula: _We must make an end of it!_
was in everybody's mouth.

Bailly was surrounded by those passionate politicians who, without the
least scruple as to the honesty or legality of the means, are
determined to make an end of the adversaries who annoy them, as soon as
circumstances seem to promise them victory.

Bailly had still near him some Eschevins long accustomed to regard him
as a magistrate for show.

The former gave the Mayor false, or highly coloured intelligence. The
others, by long habit, did not conceive themselves obliged to
communicate any thing to him.