Bailly, mayor of Paris, withdrew at the same time, abandoned by that party of whom he had been the idol, and whose victim he began to be; but his philosophic mind rated more highly the good done to the people than its favour, and more ambitious of being useful than of governing it, he already testified that heroic contempt for the calumnies of his enemies he afterwards displayed for death.
His voice was, however, lost in the tumult of the approaching municipal elections; two men already disputed the dignity of mayor of Paris, for in proportion as the royal authority declined, and that of the constitution was absorbed in the troubles of the kingdom, the mayor of Paris would become the real dictator of the capital.
These two men were La Fayette and Pétion. La Fayette supported by the constitutionalists and the national guard, Pétion by the Girondists and the Jacobins. The royalist party, by pronouncing for or against one of them, would decide the election. The king had no longer the influence of the government, which he had suffered to escape from his grasp, but he still possessed the occult powers of corruption over the leaders of the different parties. A portion of the twenty-five millions of francs (1,000,000_l._) was applied by M. de Laporte, the intendant de la liste civile, and by MM. Bertrand de Molleville and Montmorin, his ministers, in purchasing votes at the elections, motions at the clubs, applause or hisses in the Assembly. These subsidies, which had commenced with Mirabeau, now descended to the lowest dregs of the factions; they bribed the royalist press, and found their way into the hands of the orators and writers apparently most inveterate against the court; and many false manoeuvres, to which the people were urged, arose from no other source. There was a ministry of corruption, over which perfidy presided. Many obtained from this source, under pretence of aiding the court, the power of moderating or betraying the people; then fearing lest their treachery should be discovered, they hid it by a second betrayal, and turned against the king his own motions. Danton was of this number. Sometimes, through motives of charity or peace, the king gave a monthly sum to be distributed amongst the national guard, and the _quartiers_ in which insurrection was most to be apprehended. M. de La Fayette, and Pétion himself, often drew money from this source. Thus the king could, by employing those means, ensure the election, and by joining the constitutionalist party determine the choice of Paris in favour of M. de La Fayette. M. de La Fayette was one of the first originators of this revolution which humbled the throne; his name was associated with every humiliation of the court, with all the resentment of the queen, all the terrors of the king; he had been first their dread, then their protector, and, lastly, their guardian: could he be now their hope? Would not this post of mayor of Paris, this vast, civil, and popular dignity, after this long-armed dictatorship in the capital, be to La Fayette but a second stepping-stone that would raise him higher than the throne, and cast the king and constitution into the shade? This man, with his theoretically liberal ideas, was well-intentioned, and wished rather to dominate than to reign; but could any reliance be placed on these good intentions that had been so often overcome? Was it not full of these good intentions that he had usurped the command of the civic force--captured the Bastille with the insurgent Gardes Françaises--marched to Versailles at the head of the populace of Paris--suffered the château to be forced on the 6th of October--arrested the royal family at Varennes, and retained the king a prisoner in his own palace? Would he now resist should the people again command him? Would he abandon the _rôle_ of the French Washington when he had half fulfilled it? The human heart is so constituted that we rather prefer to cast ourselves into the power of those who would destroy us than seek safety from those who humiliate us. La Fayette humiliated the king, and more especially the queen.