Anatole Bailly did not join clubs but was interested in history and wrote numerous books.
He was equally interested in history and wrote many biographical accounts of overlooked people from Orleans. A competent and conscientious, but very modest, professor, Bailly authored numerous textbooks, grammars and dictionaries of Greek and Latin which were popular in French schools at the end of the 19th century. He became a member of Orleans scholarly societies of Orleans: the Societe d'Agriculture, Sciences, Belles-lettres et Arts d'Orleans and the Societe archeologique et historique de l'Orleanais. 
