ver 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.

In his _History of Prisons_, Riouffe says that "Bailly exhausted the
ferocity of the populace, of whom he had been the idol, and was basely
abandoned by the people, though they had never ceased to esteem him."

Nearly the same idea is found expressed in _The History of the
Revolution_, and in several other works.

What is called the populace rarely read and did not write. To attack it
and calumniate it therefore was a convenient thing, since no refutation
need to be feared. I am far from supposing that the historians whose
works I have quoted, ever gave way to such co