In speaking of this, M. de Loménie has said, “The history of the secret missions of Beaumarchais is instructive if we would attempt to understand absolute governments. The weak side of liberal governments, and the consequences of the abuse sometimes made of liberty, have of late years been sufficiently exposed for it to be interesting to see what went on behind the scenes of absolute power.... and to note by what complicated ways an unjustly condemned man was obliged to pass to obtain his rehabilitation, and how in revenge, this same man, stricken with civil death by a tribunal, was able to become the confidential agent of two kings and their ministers, and little by little make himself so useful that he reconquered his civil state and obtained control of a great transaction, one worthy of himself and of his intelligence.” This transaction was of course no other than his intervention in the cause of American Independence. But now in regard to his secret mission, it will be remembered that after the parliament had pronounced its crushing sentence, silence had been imposed upon him by the authority of the King. Strange as it may seem, Louis XV was not unfriendly to the petulant man who had so warmly defended himself. He had followed the suit with interest, had read the memoirs, and even amused himself at the expense of the magistracy, which he had himself established in defiance of the whole nation. The indolence and levity of the King’s character showed themselves clearly in this attitude. So long as things lasted _tant que lui_ he was satisfied to amuse himself in any way that offered, regardless of the future. One day he said to La Borde (first _valet de chambre_ of the King and friend of Beaumarchais), “They say that your friend has a superior talent for negotiation; if he could be successfully and secretly employed in an affair which interests me, his own affairs would be the better for it.” The matter which weighed upon the old king, the settlement of which was to be the price of the rehabilitation of Beaumarchais, was one that had been troubling him for more than a year.