Part 18 (1/2)

However, the subterranean water appears It is true that a clever engineer had to bore down 548 metres (or 600 yards) to find it; but thence it comes transparent as crystal, pure as if the product of distillation, warmed as physical laws had shown that it would be, more abundant indeed than they had dared to foresee, it shot up thirty-three round

Do not suppose, Gentle aside wretched views of self-love, the Eschevin would applaud such a result He shows himself, on the contrary, deeply humiliated And he will not fail in future to oppose every undertaking that ht turn out to the honour of science

Crowds of such incidents occur to the ht to be afraid of seeing the adiven up to the stationary, and exclusive spirit of the old Eschevinage--to people who have learnt nothing and studied nothing? Such is not the result of these long reflections I wished to enable people to foresee the struggle, not the defeat I even hasten to add, that by the side of the surly, harsh, rude, positive Eschevin, the type of who rare, an honourable class of citizens exists, who, content with a moderate fortune laboriously acquired, live retired, charnanimously place themselves, without any interested views, at the service of the coeously for truth as soon as they perceive it Bailly constantly obtained their concurrence; as is proved by soratitude and sympathy As to the counsellors who so often occasioned trouble, confusion, and anarchy in the Hotel de Ville in the years '89 and '90, I a so patiently, so diffidently endured their ridiculous pretensions, their unbearable assumption of power

From the earliest steps in the important study of nature, it becomes evident that facts unveiled to us in the lapse of centuries, are but a very small fraction, if we compare the ourselves in that point of view, deficiency in diffidence would just be the sament But, by the side of positive diffidence, if I may be allowed the expression, relative diffidence comes in This is often a delusion; it deceives no one, yet occasions a thousand difficulties Bailly often confounded theret, I think, that in many instances, the learned academician disdained to throw in the face of his vain fellow-labourers these words of an ancient philosopher: ”When I exaiant”

If I were to cover with a veil that which appeared to me susceptible of criticism in the character of Bailly, I should voluntarily weaken the praises that I have bestowed on several acts of his administration I will not co to the co Eschevins

I will therefore acknowledge that on several occasions, Bailly, in my opinion, showed himself influenced by a petty susceptibility, if not about his personal prerogatives, yet about those of his station

I think also that Bailly ht

Ihts to centre too exclusively on the difficulties of the ood-will, that no new storm would follow the one that he had just overcoainst the intrigues of the court, or prejudices, or anarchy, whether President of the National asseht the country saved Then his joy overflowed; he would have wished to spread it over all the world It was thus that on the day of the definite reunion of the nobility with the other two orders, the 27th of June, 1789, Bailly going from Versailles to Chaillot, after the close of the session, leaned half his body out of his carriage door, and announced the happy tidings with loud exclamations to all whom he met on the road At Sevres, it is from himself that I borrow the anecdote, he did not see without painful surprise that his communication was received with the roup of soldiers assehedthat this was a party of Swiss soldiers, who did not understand a word he said

Happy the actors in a great revolution, in whose conduct we find nothing to reprehend until after having entered into so minute an analysis of their public and private conduct

FOOTNOTE:

[14] _Eschevin_ was a sort of town-council under a mayor

BAILLY'S JOURNEY FROM PARIS TO NANTES, AND THEN FROM NANTES TO MeLUN--HIS ARREST IN THE LAST TOWN--HE IS TRANSFERRED TO PARIS

After having quitted the Mayorality of Paris, Bailly retired to Chaillot, where he hoped again to find happiness in study; but upwards of two years passed amidst the storms of public life had deeply injured his health; it was therefore requisite to obey the advice of physicians, and undertake a journey About the middle of June, 1792, Bailly quitted the capital,departue and friend, M de Lapparent, and soon after went on far as Nantes, where the due influence of another friend, M Gelee de Premion, seemed to promise him protection and tranquillity Determined to establish hiing in the house of souished people, who could understand and appreciate them They hoped to live there in peace; but news from Paris soon dissipated this illusion The Council of the Commune decreed, that the house previously occupied, in consequence of a formal decision, by the Mayor of Paris, and by the public offices of the town, ought to have paid a tax of 6,000 livres, and strange enough, that Bailly was responsible for it The pretended debt was claimed with harshness They demanded the payed to sell his library, to abandon to the chances of an auction that ht out, in the silence of his study, and with such remarkable perseverance, the most recondite secrets of the firmament

This painful separation was followed by two acts that did not afflict hiovernment (then directed, it must be allowed, by the Gironde party) placed Bailly under surveillance Every eight days the venerable acadeed to present himself at the house of the Syndic Procurator of the Departmental Administration of the Lower-Loire, like a vile malefactor, whose every footstep it would be to the interest of society to watch What was the true e measure? This secret has been buried in a toh painful to erous criminal had not exhausted the rancour of his enemies A letter from Roland, the Minister of the Interior, announced very dryly to the unfortunate proscribed man, that the apartments in the Louvre, which his family had occupied for upwards of half a century, had been withdrawn from him They had even proceeded so far as to furnish a tipstaff with the order to clear the rooms

A short tied to sell his house at Chaillot The old Mayor of Paris then had no longer a hearth or a horeat city which had been the late scene of his devotion, his solicitude, and his sacrifices When this reflection occurred to his rief that Bailly experienced on seeing himself the daily object of odious persecutions, left his patriotic convictions intact Vainly did they endeavour several tiitimate hatred towards individuals into an antipathy towards principles They still remember in Brittany the debate raised, by one of these atteue and a Vendean physician, Dr Blin Never, in the season of his greatest popularity, did the president of the National assembly express himself with more vivacity; never had he defended our first revolution withsince, in the same place, I pointed out to public attention another of our colleagues (Condorcet), who already under the blow of a capital condeht of day the principles of eternal justice, which the fashi+ons and the follies of men had but too much obscured At a tiraceful capitulations of conscience, those two exaeable convictions deserved to be re found them in the bosom of the Academy of Sciences

Tranquillity of our of intellect, to those who undertake great works Thus during his residence at Nantes, Bailly did not even try to add to his numerous scientific or literary productions This celebrated astrono novels He sometimes said with a bitter sot up, I have put ive an analysis of the two, or of the three first volu-room has just received” From time to time these abstractions were of apersons, who having reached an advanced ageto my words Bailly discoursed with them of Homer, of Plato, of Aristotle, of the principal works in our literature, of the rapid progress of the sciences, and chiefly of those of astrono friends, was a true sensibility, and great war I know that years have not effaced or weakened these rare qualities in the bosoue, and M Villenave, will therefore think it natural in me to thank them here, in the name of science and literature, in the name of humanity, for the few moments of sweet peace and happiness that they afforded to our learned colleague, at a tiratitude ofhis heart

Louis XVI had perished; dark clouds hung over the horizon; some acts of odious brutality showed our proscribed philosopher how little he must thenceforward depend on public sy (of the 7th of October, 1791), at which the National assembly decided that the bust of Bailly should be placed in the hall of their ; even persons usually of little foresight werethese transactions, Charles Marquis de Casaux, known by various productions on literature and on econoether with his wife, to take a passage on board a shi+p that he had freighted for hiland,” said M Casaux; ”ill then, if you prefer it, pass our exile in America Have no anxiety, I have property; I can, without inconvenience to oras said: 'In solitude the wise er suffices in France; the wise man must fly from a land that threatens to devour its children”

These war companion, could not shake the firm resolution of Bailly ”From the day that I became a public character,” he said, ”my fate has become irrevocably united with that of France; never will I quit er Under any circumstances my country may depend on my devotion

Whateverhis conduct on such fine generous maxims, a citizen does himself honour, but he exposes himself to fall under the blows of faction

Bailly was still at Nantes on the 30th of June, 1793, when eighty thousand Vendeans, coe that city