“The lady of the fifteen louis was _blâmée_ and Beaumarchais was condemned also to _blâme_ which seemed a contradiction. The magistrate, husband of the woman, was put out of court which was equivalent to _blâme_ for a magistrate, who thus remained incapable of filling any function of the magistracy. “I was by his side with all the family when a friend came running, terrified to tell him this absurd judgment. He did not utter an angry word or make a gesture of indignation. Master of all his movements as of his mind, he said, ‘Let us see what there yet remains to be done.’” Loménie says: “The penalty of _blâme_ was an ignominious one which rendered the condemned incapable of occupying any public office, and he was supposed to receive the sentence on his knees before the court, while the president pronounced the words, ‘The court blames thee and declares thee infamous.’” Gudin says, “This sentence had been so badly received by the multitude assembled at the doors of the chamber, the judges had been so hissed on breaking up the audience, although many of them took themselves out of the way by passing through the long corridors unknown to the public, which are called les _détours du palais_, they saw so many marks of discontentment that they were not tempted to execute to the letter the sentence which attracted to them only the _blâme universel_.” Before speaking of the veritable triumph which the public accorded to Beaumarchais in return for this cruel sentence, let us finish with the parliament Maupeou. “It was not destined,” says Loménie, “long to survive this act of anger and vengeance. In striking with civil death a man whom public opinion carried in triumph, it had struck its own death-blow. The opposition which had slept, now roused, let itself loose upon the parliament with redoubled fury. Pamphlets in prose and verse took on a new virility, the end of the reign assured its fall, and one of the first acts of the new king, Louis XVI was to establish the old parliament.” Louis XV died in May, 1774, the old parliament was re-established in August of the same year. “There were not lacking those,” says Bonnefon, “who called the destruction of the parliament Maupeou, the Saint-Bartholomew of the ministers.” The Spanish ambassador, quick at repartee, added, “that in any case it was not the massacre of the Innocents.” But to return to Beaumarchais. “All the gentlemen at court,” says Gudin, “all the most distinguished persons of Paris, inscribed themselves at his door. No one spoke of anything but of him.” “It was at the very moment,” says Beaumarchais, “when they declared that I was no longer anything, that everyone seemed the most eager to count me for something. Everywhere I was welcomed, sought after; offers of every nature were showered upon me.” The Prince of Conti was the first to set the example.