At the Louvre, in the Home of Bailly, the First Mayor of Paris
Up until at least 1783, Bailly lived in the Louvre, as a guard for the Crown’s paintings. However, he was above all, a famous astronomer. A Paris deputy in the Estates General, he presided over the session where the Tennis Court Oath was made on June 20, 1789. On July 15, 1789, he was proclaimed Mayor of Paris. Two days later, he welcomed Louis XVI to the Hôtel de Ville and presented him with a cockade, a revolutionary symbol. At the head of a city of 700,000 inhabitants, the Mayor of Paris thereby became a leading figure, likely to threaten the balance of power.
Portrait of Jean Sylvain Bailly (1736-1793), Mayor of Paris
Jean Sylvain Bailly, Proclaimed Mayor of Paris in 1789
La Fayette and Bailly, Half-Men, Half-Roosters, Circling a Chicken, Madame Bailly?
Very quickly, Bailly was criticized for his wealth and his contempt for the people. The journalist Marat could not find words harsh enough to condemn his lifestyle, financed with public funds. A supporter of martial law, passed in October 1789 in order to dissuade popular demonstrations, Bailly was also, along with La Fayette, responsible for the massacre of protesters on the Champ-du-Mars (July 17, 1791). The satirical campaigns increased against these two former heroes of 1789. On November 12, 1793, he was judged and then executed for this very reason.
