Louis Edmée Barthelemy Bailly

Louis Edmé Barthelemy Bailly de Juilly' (1760-1819)

Louis Edmé Barthélémy Bailly known as of Juilly is a man of the French revolution, that the notoriety of Sylvain Bailly, Maire of Paris, eclipsed. It is nevertheless about a politician characteristic of the rise of the elites of the Third-State before and after the Revolution. Born in Saint-Phal, close to Troyes in the Paddle, on October 17th, 1760, he is the legitimate son of Edmé Barthélémy Bailly, plowman with Saint-Phal in the Paddle and of Edmée Aubron. One knows nothing of his early childhood, nor of his family. As much of people under the old mode, Bailly progresses in the social hierarchy thanks to the clergy and with the ecclesiastical career.

Bailly enters to Oratoriens of the Collège of Juilly close to Meaux in 1779. It is then 19 years old. The college, founded in 1649, with eight places of Paris, accommodates the fine flower of youth and exemption an education all at the same time “wisely monarchist” and opened with the novel ideas developed by Montesquieu, former student, Voltaire, Rousseau, Buffon. The oratoriens then have an excellent reputation in the field of the eloquence, the study of old and like precursors of the teaching of the scientific matters.

The order of Oratoriens competes besides with that of the Jesuits until supplanting the Society of Jesus, in 1762, during their expulsion of France. Famous professors taught in Juilly. Most known is Massillon (1663-1742) which had the audacity to open the funeral oration of Louis XIV by this provocative sentence: “God alone is tall! my brothers”. Certain professors illustrate themselves in Juilly at the time of the revolutionary period and under the following modes, such Joseph Fouché, Régent of mathematics and professor of physics in Juilly which will preserve at the college the image of a “catch”; it was before it becomes Conventionnel, Régicide, person in charge of the drownings of Nantes in 1793, then Ministre for the Police force of Napoleon 1st then of Louis XVIII.

Bailly côtoie in addition Billaud-Game preserve, Prefect of the Studies, i.e. repeater, which will be illustrated later with the Convention, in particular like the inventor of the revolutionary calendar. It is him which, at the time of the lawsuit of Louis XVI, will not hesitate to require the death of the king without judgment in the forty eight hours. Billaud-Game preserve was illustrated in addition to have submitted in front of the revolutionary Tribunal of the famous people, such as Philippe Egalité and Marie-Antoinette of Austria. Bailly, Fouché and Billaud-Game preserve carry in Juilly the tonsure and the cassock; they are called “my Father” but they will not pronounce their wishes of priesthood, as one often heard. Bailly will for its part teach in Juilly French, Latin, the Greek, in class of fourth then in class of rhetoric. The College accommodates brilliant pupils then, such as the philosopher Louis de Bonald, Charles-Antoine of Aix, Chevalier of Veygoux, more known under the name of Général Dessaix, victorious the Marengo one, the component Duport, conventional the Heyrault de Seychelles, Etienne Denis Pasquier, future Minister of Justice of Louis XVIII. Bailly will leave Juilly at the beginning of the Revolution.

In 1789, Bailly adopts the novel ideas and gives up teaching to become lawyer at the Parliament of Paris; the bar is, at the time, the most favorable way to reach the political career. The files about lawyers of Paris however do not preserve any trace of its passage at the bar, undoubtedly because of the fact that the Order of lawyers has, like all the other corporations, summer removed by the law the hatter of June 14th, 1791, which made a free profession of it, without regulation, nor register. Bailly is named member of the Administration of the department of the Seine & Marne in 1790 and the Charged commission to audit the settlement accounts of the old province of Ile de France. It then lends oath to the civil constitution of the Clergy, indicates Prevert in its general biography (1848), which appears contestable since it did not pronounce its wishes.

At the end of the constituent Assembly the elected deputies had decided that none of them would be re-eligible within the new Parliament known as “legislative” (October 1st, 1791 - September 21st, 1792), so that this legislature reveals new men. Bailly is elected appointed substitute for the department for the Seine & Marne, but will not sit fault of vacancy of the seat of its holder. It should here be recalled that the vote for all does not exist at the time, in spite of the principles proclaimed by the Declaration of the human rights of 1789. The vote is censitaire. In other words, only the citizens paying the tax and thus taking part financially in the public thing, vote. Thus, on 28 million inhabitants, France counts 4 million voters then only. It is necessary, moreover, to be eligible, be landowner and to pay at least 51 pounds of taxes, with the result that 40.000 to 50.000 citizens only have then the political power, i.e. a middle-class minority. This assembly known as legislative will be mainly confronted with the war. Indeed, monarchical Europe leagues to destroy the Republic and the novel ideas.

April 20th, 1792, the Parliament, which are politically divided, vote with the quasi-unanimity the war in Austria, ones hoping for the defeat and the return of the king, others hoping to carry freedom out of the borders; a war which will last more than 23 years. The military setbacks that France in spring 1792 knows (France are occupied until Sedan), cause an extreme agitation inside which leads to the catch of the Tuileries on June 20th, then with the fall of the royalty on August 10th, 1792.

Bailly is sent, on September 21st, 1792, like deputy of the Seine & Marne to Convention. Elected in the district of Juilly where it resides, one calls it Bailly de Juilly.

Friend of the ideas news, but especially moderated man, Bailly de Juilly is frightened by violences which mark the beginnings of this legislature and in particular by the “massacres of September” during which 1.400 people are carried out summarily of which the noble ones regarded as enemies of the interior and 223 insermentés ecclesiastics gathered with the convent of the Carmelite friars in Paris, whose Bailly was near and whose he remembers the crucial role which was theirs in its formation in particular at the oratoriens. He reproaches the revolution in his second phase his violences and proclamation the assembly by these negative votes. He is part, at the time, of the deputies known as of the “Plain” or, as call it its detractors, of the “Marsh”, that one usually oppose to the deputies of the “Mountain”, on the left, sitting on the highest benches of the room. In the lawsuit of Louis XVI, who opens on December 11th, 1792, Bailly de Juilly subscribes to all the questions of the minority which, if she does not want openly to save the king, is at least decided not to make it die on the scaffold. He declares very openly in a note with his principals of the department of the Seine & Marne, preserved by his descendants which the king is guilty (one then discovered the iron cupboard containing his correspondences with the emperor of Austria, Joseph II, his beautiful brother). But as a Christian who it will always remain, it wishes forgiveness, this forgiveness whose Robespierre said that it sounded like an insult. On the problem of the ground for appeal after the judgment, three tendencies are expressed then with the Parliament; those which want a ground for appeal, the call to the people, i.e., the tender of the verdict to the approval of the voters (Bailly is these); those which consider that the Parliament judges in first and the last arises; and those which, like Robespierre, want death without judgment, considering that it is of a political question and not about a business of common right. Robespierre adds, to force the deputies to vote for death: “If the king is not guilty, those who détrôné it are”. Louis XVI, as for him, request which the judgment which will be given either subjected to a ground for appeal, that of French people: “I declare that I interjette call to the Nation itself of the judgment of his representatives. On this point of view, Bailly answers:

" Those which want to judge Louis definitively, justify their opinion on misfortunes which the call to the people would involve. Their eyes, the civil war is inevitable, if the communes of the Republic gather to come to a conclusion by yes or by not about the fate of LOUIS." " The civil war among the people, when it is question of punishing a détrôné tyrant! Eh! Did the day of August 10th, the inversion of a constitutional throne, the convocation of a national convention to establish a republican constitution, bring the civil war? And however almost all the authorities made up were then royalisées; and our territory was invaded by a many army. And today that our armies are victorious, that the royalty is abolished, that the republic is declared, that all the authorities which have just been renewed go in the direction of the republican Revolution, have fears a civil war; but this fear is an insult against the sovereignty of the people.

" Not, not, citizens, you reassure; there is civil war in a great State only when there are two about equal parties in force; however I in this moment, do you believe ask you that the party of the aristocrats and the royalists dared to be shown opposite in front of the sovereignty of the people? " " Not, you know it, this party is only one handle of rebels and facetious in front of the majority of French ". Bailly adds: " If it is as legislator whom we will decide of the fate of LOUIS, we must envisage all the later consequences of measurement which we will adopt, and combine any step on the supreme law of the public hello. LOUIS, undoubtedly, deserved death. But would this death be more salutary than harmful with our freedom? The death of a tyrant could make revive tyranny while LOUIS XVI, scorned, degraded, cannot be dangerous any more; its life is not any more that of a coward and a perjury, on which no party can compter." " Since August 10th, the people looked it like an invaluable hostage against the enemy armies to consolidate the incipient republic, it is even more important to preserve it as an hostage of the war who is not finished, and like a pledge assured the irrevocable destruction of the royauté." " The death of a tyrant forever given freedom to its people. See Cesar assassinated by Brutus, and soon replaced by another despot and in times less distant from us, see Charles 1st perishing on the scaffold and the Cromwell usurper the substitute then under the title of guard. See on the contrary Tarquins expelled of Rome; Driven out Denis of Syracuse…” Bailly concludes finally that between the perpetual prison and the banishment, he prefers this second solution, specifying: " According to these considerations, the measurement which appears to me best to be appropriate for the hello of the Republic, it is to conclude, with Thomas Paine, with the perpetual banishment of Louis Capet, after the war… " By-there you to give a great example to the universe; the sight of a détrôné tyrant carrying everywhere the seal of the ignominie, proscribed of its country with the royalty, whose memory will torment it unceasingly, will be an alive lesson for the kings who will fear such a terrible fall”.

This being observed, the attitude of refusal of Bailly relating to the death sentence of Louis XVI is an act of courage of its share, like all deputies not-regicides. Indeed, at the time, the vote is done by roll-call and with high voice, with the Platform. The deputies express themselves under the pressure “of the party of died” and the “Patriots” massed in the Platform. As itself will say it the regicide, Ravelliere Lepeaux: “It should be acknowledged, in this moment, there was more courage to exonerate than to condemn”. Moreover, of many historians say that without the roll-call, and this pressure of Parisian crowd, the king would have, undoubtedly, to save his head. The fate of the defendant will remain undecided until the last department, called during the 37 hours that the procession of the deputies lasts which is completed on January 17th, 1793. On a majority of 361 ways, 361 deputies vote death without condition! Announced on January 20th, 1793 with Louis XVI, the execution takes place as of the following day.

Then open the period known as of the Terror, founded because of the civil war in the Vendée and the war at the borders. Bailly keeps deepest silence until the fall of Robespierre, Thermidor 9 (July 27th, 1794), just like the abbot Siéyes °, from whom one requested what it had made for the disturbed period of the terror and which had answered laconically: “I lived”. Bailly could have said " I have survécu" because the position of moderate was then very dangerous. Bailly contributes however of all its forces to the inversion of “Incorruptible” when the moment comes, that is to say on Thermidor 10.

After the fall of Robespierre, Bailly is appointed secretary then commission agent in Strasbourg with mission of softening there or there of repairing the exactions of conventional the Saint Just and Lebas, then returned on mission, and creates a committee charged to purify associations Robespierristes (January 7th, 1795). It makes leave prison good number of innocent and expels public office all the men attached to the faction of Robespierre which had piled up them there. January 21st, 1795, goes back birthday from dead to Louis XVI, it pronounces with the Cathedral of Strasbourg, a vibrating speech of republicanism, then however which it did not vote the death of the sovereign. Of return within Convention, Bailly submits the report/ratio of its operations and continues to fight with much energy it left Robespierristes. Dubois-Crancé, deputy of the Ardennes to Convention having sought to frighten the whole of conventional on the progress of the royalists while making publish his speech, and being made applaud by the few deputies who remained still attached to the system of Robespierre, Bailly was turned over towards them and says to them: “Sirs of above the Mountain, you are not yet the Masters”. Undoubtedly, they were not it any more since Thermidor 9, which had led to the execution, without judgment, of 72 Jacobins. Bailly fills the president's functions of Convention, 16 Meadow Year III (June 4th, 1795) to replace Lanjuinais and during the terrible day of Meadow Year III. It does not deploy there less courage than his colleague Boissy d' Anglas who occupies the armchair with him. Let us specify that the riot of the 1st Meadow one (May 20th, 1795), caused by the famine, had led a furious crowd to invade the enclosure of Convention while shouting: “Of the bread and the constitution of 1793”. The deputies Sliding gauge and Dumont having given up the armchair of president, it is Boissy d' Anglas which went up to the platform. As the insurrectionists hoped to frighten it by presenting the head of the Feraud deputy to him at the end of a spade, Bissu d' Anlas greeted this bloody head respectfully, calmed crowd and could then restore the order within the Parliament while utilizing the troop. Bailly chairs Convention the 30 Messidor An III (June 21st, 1795) when a delegation of the section of the Natural history museum, arrival to congratulate the Parliament on her victory over the royalist reaction, asked for a constitution, it made this answer: “Convention will be able to maintain the Republic by a wise constitution; but it will not be the republic of Robespierre, the republic of the décemvirs, the men of blood; it will not be the republic of Paris, but that of all the departments, because all the departments contribute to its defense…”.

In the meeting of Thermidor 19 (August 6th, 1795), Bailly shows his/her Goupilleau colleague to exaggerate the table of the reaction which then took place in the South against the Jacobins, more known reaction under the name of “white terror”. To the same time, he is opposed with force to the proposal made by his colleagues stop all the priests who had not lent oath to the constitution and he announces that the committee of general security, of which he is member, “took in this respect all measurements which claims public peace”. Here, like before, Bailly interposes best than it can to protect the insermenté clergy, with which it owes its intellectual and moral formation.

After the promulgation of the constitution of the Year III, which created two assemblies, the Council of the Five Hundreds and the Council of Old and an executive body of 3 Directors, Bailly passed by the way of the fate to the Council of the Five Hundreds and secretary is elected by it on July 18th, 1796. This new assembly, chaired by Picheru, lines up very openly at the sides of the party of Clychiens, which one showed to tighten the hand with the royalists and which will be reversed by the coup d'etat of the 18 Fructidor year V (September 1795). It is indeed after having discovered the treason of PICHEGRU, whose certain documents had been found between the hands of agents of Louis XVIII, that occurred the coup d'etat which was the first conspicuous entry of the Boaparte General in policy. Following this coup d'etat, the refractory laws against the priests are given into force, and the deportation in Guyana, which one called at the time “the dry guillotine”, strikes good number of conspirators and conventional. It is about one period of reaction against the royalist movement and it is at that time that Fouché, former school-fellow of Bailly with Juilly, implements for the first time a police mode which he will then improve under the Consulate of the Empire, of which will be victims good number of conventional. Bailly, which lines up side of Clychiens, is at the time registered voter on the list of the deportations for Guyana, when this list is discussed with the legislative Body. Males declares openly that his/her Bailly colleague cannot be royalist since he is sworn in and married priest. This indication is false since Bailly, certainly old oratorien, had however not pronounced its wishes of priesthood; however, this lie will save Bailly of the deportation. Re-elected with the Council of the Five Hundreds by the department of the Paddle, its native area, in 1798, BAILLY is denounced with the platform like “an escaped royalist with the deportation of Fructidor and like a coward” by his Gauran colleague, but this charge does not have a continuation.

During the Consulate Bailly takes party for the order that Bonaparte incarnates after its coup d'etat of the 18 Brumaire. It is at once named Préfet of the department of the Batch.

Its control in its functions is that of a man careful and moderate, as Jean TULARD in his study on the Prefects of first Empire.Bailly underlines it can at that time reconcile the interests and the parties opposed in particular on the difficult problem of the conscription and thus succeeds in during 13 years being made estimate of all its managed and approve government which names it Chevalier of the Legion of Honor since 1804 then Baron and Officer of the Legion of Honor. In 1813, its administration having known certain disorders, a severe examination is ordered and reveals that the honesty of BAILLY cannot be questioned. However, it proves that by weakness and negligence, it tolerated in its services of the abuses which lead the imperial government to order its replacement.

In 1813, Bailly is then 53 years old. It takes its retirement and comes to live with his three children and his wife Agathe Cormery whom it married in 1797, a modest country house that it has in Normandy. It deals then with their education, thus taking again its first trade. Armand Louis, will become notary, Therese Sophie will remain seems he without descent and Justine Louise (1798-1860) will marry Achille Louis Guillaume Bernier, wire of François Bernier, farmer in Aisne and deputy with the legislative Parliament.

The baron Bailly deceased on July 16th, 1819 with Paris, 57 rue des Saints Pères, of the continuations of an accident of diligence occurred on the road of Rouen, after having undergone the painful amputation of its two arms.

One knows of him a report/ratio on the organization of the national company of Sciences, Belles-Lettres and Arts, In-8th which it will present to the Council of the Five Hundreds in the name of the committee of state education in 1799, like his report/ratio on the judgment of the last king of the French.

SOURCES:

- Biography of famous men of Michaud. - Public records. - Speech of Bailly on the last king of French. - Family archives Grundeler - Service of the Seal of Ministèe of Justice

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