Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men Part 17

These enemies had collected in the capital thirty or forty thousand vagabonds. What could be opposed to them? The Tribunals? They had no moral power, and were declared enemies to the revolution. The National Guard? It was only just formed; the officers scarcely knew each other, and moreover scarcely knew the men who were to obey them. Was it at least permitted to depend on the regular armed force? It consisted of six battalions of French Guards without officers; of six thousand soldiers who, from every part of France, had flocked singly to Paris, on reading in the newspapers the following expressions from General Lafayette: "They talk of deserters! The real deserters are those men who have not abandoned their standards." There were finally six hundred Swiss Guards in Paris, deserters from their regiments; for, let us speak freely, the celebrated monument of Lucerne will not prevent the Swiss themselves from being recognized by impartial and intelligent historians, as having experienced the revolutionary fever.

Those who, with such poor means of repression, flattered themselves that they could entirely prevent any disorder, in a town of seven or eight hundred thousand inhabitants in exasperation, must have been very blind.

Those, on the other hand, who attempt to throw the responsibility of the disorders on Bailly, would prove by this alone, that good people should always keep aloof from public affairs during a revolution.

The administrator, a being of modern creation, now declares, with the most ludicrous self-sufficiency, that Bailly was not equal to the functions of a Mayor of Paris. It is, he says, by undeserved favour that his statue has been placed on the facade of the Hotel de Ville. During his magistracy, Bailly did not create any large square in the capital, he did not open out any large streets, he elevated no splendid monument; Bailly would therefore have done better had he remained an astronomer or erudite scholar.

The enumeration of all the public erections that Bailly did not execute is correct. It might also have been added, that far from devoting the munic.i.p.al funds to building, he had the vast and threatening castle of the Bastille demolished down to its very foundation's; but this would not deprive Bailly of the honour of having been one of the most enlightened magistrates that the city of Paris could boast.

Bailly did not enlarge any street, did not erect any palace during the twenty-eight months of his administration! No, undoubtedly! for, first it was necessary to give bread to the inhabitants of Paris; now the revenues of the town, added to the daily sums furnished by Necker, scarcely sufficed for those princ.i.p.al wants. Some years before, the Parisians had been very much displeased at the establishment of import dues on all alimentary substances. The writers of that epoch preserved the burlesque Alexandrine, which was placarded all over the town, on the erection of the Octroi circ.u.mvallation:

"Le mur murant Paris, rend Paris murmurant."[13]

The mult.i.tude was not content with murmuring; the moment that a favourable opportunity occurred, it went to the barriers and broke them down. These were reestablished by the administration with great trouble, and the smugglers often took them down by main force. The _Octroi_ revenue from the imports, which used to amount to 70,000 francs, now fell to less than 30,000. Those persons who have considered the figures of the present revenue, will a.s.suredly not compare such very dissimilar epochs.

But it is said that ameliorations in the moral world may often be effected without expense. What were those for which the public was indebted to the direct exertions of Bailly? The question is simple, but repentance will follow the having asked it. My answer is this: One of the most honourable victories gained by mathematics over the avaricious prejudices of the administrations of certain towns has been, in our own times, the radical suppression of gambling-houses. I will hasten to prove that such a suppression had already engaged Bailly's attention, that he had partly effected it, and that no one ever spoke of those odious dens with more eloquence and firmness.

"I declare," wrote the Mayor of Paris on the 5th of May, 1790, "that the gambling-houses are in my opinion a public scourge. I think that these meetings not only should not be tolerated, but that they ought to be sought out and prosecuted, as much as the liberty of the citizens, and the respect due to their homes, will admit.

"I regard the tax that has been levied from such houses as a disgraceful tribute. I do not think that it is allowable to employ a revenue derived from vice and disorder, even to do good. In consequence of these principles, I have never granted any permit to gambling-houses; I have constantly refused them. I have constantly announced that not only they would not be tolerated, but that they would be sought out and prosecuted."

If I add that Bailly suppressed all spectacles of animal-fighting, at which the mult.i.tude cannot fail to acquire ferocious and sanguinary habits, I shall have a right to ask of every superficial writer, how he would justify the epithet of sterile, applied with such a.s.surance to the administration of our virtuous colleague.

Anxious to carry out in practice that which had been largely recognized theoretically in the declaration of rights--the complete separation of religion from civil law,--Bailly presented himself before the National a.s.sembly on the 14th of May, 1791, and demanded, in the name of the city of Paris, the abolition of an order of things which, in the then state of men's minds, gave rise to great abuses. If declarations of births, of marriages, and of deaths are now received by civil officers in a form agreeing with all religious opinions, the country is chiefly indebted for it to the intelligent firmness of Bailly.

The unfortunate beings for whom all public men should feel most solicitous, are those prisoners who are awaiting in prison the decrees of the courts of justice. Bailly took care not to neglect such a duty.

At the end of 1790, the old tribunals had no moral power; they could no longer act; the new ones were not yet created. This state of affairs distracted the mind of our colleague. On the 18th of November, he expressed his grief to the National a.s.sembly, in terms full of sensibility and kindness. I should be culpable if I left them in oblivion.

"Gentlemen, the prisons are full. The innocent are awaiting their justification, and the criminals an end to their remorse. All breathe an unwholesome air, and disease will p.r.o.nounce terrible decrees. Despair dwells there: Despair says, either give me death, or judge me. When we visit those prisons, that is what the fathers of the poor and the unfortunate hear; this is what it is their duty to repeat to the fathers of their country. We must tell them that in those asylums of crime, of misery, and of every grief, time is infinite in its duration; a month is a century, a month is an abyss the sight of which is frightful.... We ask of the tribunals to empty the prisons by the justification of the innocent, or by examples of justice."

Does it not appear to you, Gentlemen, that calm times may occasionally derive excellent lessons, and, moreover, lessons expressed in very good language, from our revolutionary epoch?

FOOTNOTE:

[13] "The wall walling Paris, renders Paris wailing."

THE KING'S FLIGHT.--EVENTS ON THE CHAMP DE MARS.

In the month of April, 1791, Bailly perceived that his influence over the Parisian population was decreasing. The king had announced that he should depart on the 18th, and would remain some days at St. Cloud. The state of his health was the ostensible cause of his departure. Some religious scruples were probably the real cause; the holy week was approaching, and the king would have no communications with the ecclesiastics sworn in for his parish. Bailly was not discomposed at this projected journey; he regarded it even with satisfaction. Foreign courts, said our colleague, looked upon him as a prisoner. The sanction he gives to various decrees, appears to them extorted by violence; the visit of Louis XVI. to Saint Cloud will dissipate all these false reports. Bailly therefore concerted measures with La Fayette for the departure of the royal family; but the inhabitants of Paris, less confiding than their mayor, already saw the king escaping from St.

Cloud, and seeking refuge amidst foreign armies. They therefore rushed to the Tuileries, and notwithstanding all the efforts of Bailly and his colleague, the court carriages could not advance a step. The king and queen therefore, after waiting for an hour and a half in their carriage, reascended into the palace.

To remain in power after such a check, was giving to the country the most admirable proof of devotion.

In the night of the 20th to the 21st of June, 1791, the king quitted the Tuileries. This flight, so fatal to the monarchy, irretrievably destroyed the ascendency that Bailly had exercised over the capital. The populace usually judges from the event. The king, they said, with the queen and their two children, were freely allowed to go out of the palace. The Mayor of Paris was their accomplice, for he has the means of knowing every thing; otherwise he might be accused of carelessness, or of the most culpable negligence.

These attacks were not only echoed in the shops, in the streets, but also in the strongly organized clubs. The Mayor answered in a peremptory manner, but without entirely effacing the first impression. During several days after the king's flight, both Bailly and La Fayette were in personal danger. The National a.s.sembly had often to look to their safety.

I have now reached a painful portion of my task, a frightful event, that led finally to Bailly's cruel death; a b.l.o.o.d.y catastrophe, the relation of which will perhaps oblige me to allow a little blame to hover over some actions of this virtuous citizen, whom thus far it has been my delight to praise without any restriction.

The flight of the king had an immense influence on the progress of our first revolution. It threw into the republican party some considerable political characters who, till then, had hoped to realize the union of a monarchy with democratical principles.

Mirabeau, a short time before his death, having heard this projected flight spoken of, said to Cabanis: "I have defended monarchy to the last; I defend it still, although I think it lost.... But, if the king departs, I will mount the tribune, have the throne declared vacant, and proclaim a Republic."

After the return from Varennes, the project of subst.i.tuting a republican government for a monarchical government was very seriously discussed by the most moderate members of the National a.s.sembly, and we now know that the Duke de La Rochefoucauld and Dupont (de Nemours) for example, were decidedly in favour of a republic. But it was chiefly in the clubs that the idea of such a radical change had struck root. When the Commission of the National a.s.sembly had expressed itself, through M.

Muguet, at the sitting of the 13th of July, 1791, against the forfeiture of Louis XVI., there was a great fermentation in Paris. Some agents of the Cordeliers (Shoemakers') Club were the first to ask for signatures to a pet.i.tion on the 14th of July, against the proposed decision. The a.s.sembly refused to read and even to receive it. On the motion of Laclos, the club of the Jacobins got up another. This, after undergoing some important modifications, was to be signed on the 17th on the Champ de Mars, on the altar of their country. These projects were discussed openly, in full daylight. The National a.s.sembly deemed them anarchical.

On the 16th of July it called to its bar the munic.i.p.ality of Paris, enjoining it to have recourse to force, if requisite, to repress any culpable movements.

The Council of the Commune on the morning of the 17th placarded a proclamation that it had prepared according to the orders of the National a.s.sembly. Some munic.i.p.al officers went about preceded by a trumpeter, to read it in various public squares. Around the Hotel de Ville, the military arrangements, commanded by La Fayette, led to the expectation of a sanguinary conflict. All at once, on the opening of the sitting of the National a.s.sembly, a report was circulated that two good citizens having dared to tell the people collected around their country's altar, that they must obey the law, had been put to death, and that their heads, stuck upon pikes, were carried through the streets.

The news of this attack excited the indignation of all the deputies, and under this impression, Alexander Lameth, then President of the a.s.sembly, of his own accord transmitted to Bailly very severe new orders, a circ.u.mstance which, though only said _en pa.s.sant_, has been but recently known.

The munic.i.p.al body, as soon as it was informed, about eleven o'clock, of the two a.s.sa.s.sinations, deputed three of its members, furnished with full powers, to reestablish order. Strong detachments accompanied the munic.i.p.al officers. About two o'clock it was reported that stones had been thrown at the National Guard. The Munic.i.p.al Council instantly had martial law proclaimed on the Place de Greve, and the red flag suspended from the princ.i.p.al window of the Hotel de Ville. At half-past five o'clock, just when the munic.i.p.al body was about to start for the Champ de Mars, the three councillors, who had been sent in the morning to the scene of disorder, returned, accompanied by a deputation of twelve persons, taken from among the pet.i.tioners. The explanations given on various sides occasioned a new deliberation of the Council. The first decision was maintained, and at six o'clock the munic.i.p.ality began its march with the red flag, three pieces of cannon, and numerous detachments of the National Guard.

Bailly, as chief of the munic.i.p.ality, found himself at this time in one of those solemn and perilous situations, in which a man becomes responsible in the eyes of a whole nation, in the eyes of posterity, for the inconsiderate or even culpable actions of the pa.s.sionate mult.i.tude that surrounds him, but which he scarcely knows, and over which he has little or no influence.

The National Guard, in that early epoch of the revolution, was very troublesome to lead and to rule. Insubordination appeared to be the rule in its ranks; and hierarchical obedience a very rare exception. My remark may perhaps appear severe: well, Gentlemen, read the contemporary writings, Grimm's Correspondence, for example, and you will see, under date of November 1790, a dismissed captain replying to the regrets of his company in the following style: "Console yourselves, my companions, I shall not quit you; only, henceforward I shall be a simple fusilier; if you see me resolved to be no longer your chief, it is because I am content to command in my turn."

It is allowable besides to suppose that the National Guard of 1791 was deficient, in the presence of such crowds, of that patience, that clemency, of which the French troops of the line have often given such perfect examples. It was not aware that, in a large city, crowds are chiefly composed of the unemployed and the idly curious.

It was half-past seven o'clock when the munic.i.p.al body arrived at the Champ de Mars. Immediately some individuals placed on the glacis exclaimed: "Down with the red flag! down with the bayonettes!" and threw some stones. There was even a gun fired. A volley was fired in the air to frighten them; but the cries soon recommenced; again some stones were thrown; then only the fatal fusillade of the National Guard began!

These, Gentlemen, are the deplorable events of the Champ de Mars, faithfully a.n.a.lyzed from the relation that Bailly himself gave of the 18th July to the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly. This recital, the truth of which no one a.s.suredly will question any more than myself, labours under some involuntary but very serious omissions. I will indicate them, when the march of events leads us, in following our unfortunate colleague, to the revolutionary tribunal.

BAILLY QUITS THE MAYORALTY THE 12TH OF NOVEMBER, 1791.--THE ESCHEVINS.--EXAMINATION OF THE REPROACHES THAT MIGHT BE ADDRESSED TO THE MAYOR.

I resume the biography of Bailly at the time when he quitted the Hotel de Ville after a magistracy of about two years.

On the 12th November, 1791, Bailly convoked the Council of the Commune, rendered an account of his administration, solemnly entreated those who thought themselves ent.i.tled to complain of him, to say so without reserve; so resolved was he to bow to any legitimate complaints; installed his successor Petion, and retired. This separation did not lead to any of those heartfelt demonstrations from the co-labourers of the late Mayor, which are the true and the sweetest recompense to a good man.

I have sought for the hidden cause of such a constant and undisguised hostility towards the first Mayor of Paris. I asked myself first, whether the magistrate's manners had possibly excited the susceptibilities of the Eschevins.[14] The answer is decidedly in the negative. Bailly showed in all the relations of life a degree of patience, a suavity, a deference to the opinions of others, that would have soothed the most irascible self-love.

Must we suspect jealousy to have been at work? No, no; the persons who const.i.tuted the town-council were too obscure, unless they were mad, to attempt to vie in public consideration and glory with the ill.u.s.trious author of _the History of Astronomy_, with the philosopher, the writer, the erudite scholar who belonged to our three princ.i.p.al academies, an honour that Fontenelle alone had enjoyed before him.

Let us say it aloud, for such is our conviction, nothing personal excited the evil proceedings, the acts of insubordination with which Bailly had daily to reproach his numerous a.s.sistants. It is even presumable, that in his position, any one else would have had to register more numerous and more serious complaints. Let us be truthful: when the _aristocracy of the ground-floor_, according to the expression of one of the most ill.u.s.trious members of the French Academy, was called by the revolutionary movements to replace the _aristocracy of the first-floor_, it became giddy. Have I not, it said, conducted the business of the warehouse, the workshop, the counting-house, &c., with probity and success; why then should I not equally succeed in the management of public affairs? And this swarm of new statesmen were in a hurry to commence work; hence all control was irksome to them, and each wished to be able to say on returning home, "I have framed such or such an act that will tie the hands of faction for ever; I have repressed this or that riot; I have, in short, saved the country by proposing such or such a measure for the public good, and by having it adopted." The p.r.o.noun _I_ so agreeably tickles the ear of a man lately risen from obscurity.

What the thorough-bred Eschevin, whether new or old, dreads above every thing else, is specialties. He has an insurmountable antipathy towards men, who have in the face of the world gained the honourable t.i.tles of historian, geometer, mechanician, astronomer, physician, chemist, or geologist, &c.... His desire, his will, is to speak on every thing. He requires, therefore, colleagues who cannot contradict him.

If the town constructs an edifice, the Eschevin, losing sight of the question, talks away on the aspect of the facades. He declares with the imperturbable a.s.surance inspired by a fact that he had heard speak of whilst on the knees of his nurse, that on a particular side of the future building, the moon, an active agent of destruction, will incessantly corrode the stones of the frontage, the shafts of the columns, and that it will efface in a few years all the projecting ornaments; and hence the fear of the moon's voracity will lead to the upsetting of all the views, the studies, and the well-digested plans of several architects. Place a meteorologist on the council, and, despite the authority of the nurses, a whole scaffolding of gratuitous suppositions will be crumbled to dust by these few categorical and strict words of science; the moon does not exert the action that is attributed to it.

At another time, the Eschevin hurls his anathema at the system of warming by steam. According to him, this diabolical invention is an incessant cause of damp to the wood-work, the furniture, the papers, and the books. The Eschevin fancies, in short, that in this way of warming, torrents of watery vapour enter into the atmosphere of the apartments.

Can he love a colleague, I ask, who after having had the cunning patience to let him come to the conclusion of his discourse, informs him that, although vapour, the vehicle of an enormous quant.i.ty of latent heat, rapidly conveys this caloric to every floor of the largest edifice, it has never occasion therefore to escape from those impermeable tubes through which the circulation is effected!

Amidst the various labours that are required by every large town, the Eschevin thinks, some one day, that he has discovered an infallible way of revenging himself of specialties. Guided by the light of modern geology, it has been proposed to go with an immense sounding line in hand, to seek in the bowels of the earth the incalculable quant.i.ties of water, that from all eternity circulate there without benefiting human nature, to make them spout up to the surface, to distribute them in various directions, in large cities, until then parched, to take advantage of their high temperature, to warm economically the magnificent conservatories of the public gardens, the halls of refuge, the wards of the sick in hospitals, the cells of madmen. But according to the old geology of the Eschevin, promulgated perhaps by his nurse, there is no circulation in subterranean water; at all events, subterranean water cannot be submitted to an ascending force and rise to the surface; its temperature would not differ from that of common well-water. The Eschevin, however, agrees to the expensive works proposed. Those works, he says, will afford no material result; but once for all, such fantastic projects will receive a solemn and rough contradiction, and we shall then be liberated for ever from the odious yoke under which science wants to enslave us.