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 Assembly, 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 pronounce 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.