They became so frequent and their tone grew so malignant that Beaumarchais felt the time had come to put a stop to them. Seriously outraged by a courtier whom Gudin calls the Chevalier du C---- he accepted the provocation. They mounted their horses and rode off to a secluded spot in the woods behind Meudon. In the words of Gudin, “Beaumarchais had the sad advantage of plunging his sword into the bosom of his adversary; but when on withdrawing it he saw the blood issue in a copious stream he was seized with terror and thought of nothing but helping him. He took his handkerchief and attached it as well as he could over the wound, to arrest the flow of blood and to stop fainting. “‘Save yourself,’ said the fallen man, ‘you are lost if any one sees you, if any one learns that it is you who have taken my life.’ “‘You must have help, I will get it for you’--Beaumarchais mounted and rode to Meudon, found a surgeon, and indicating the spot to him, where the wounded man lay, he went off at full gallop to Paris to see what was to be done. His first care was to inform himself if the Chevalier du C---- still lived. He found that he had been brought to Paris but that his life was despaired of--he learned that the sick man refused to name the one who had wounded him so seriously. “‘I have only what I merit,’ he said. ‘I have provoked an honest man who never gave me any offense, to please people whom I do not esteem.’ “His relatives and friends were not able to draw any other reply from him during the eight days which he lived. He carried the secret to the tomb, leaving to Beaumarchais the regret of having taken the life of a man who proved so generous an enemy. “‘Ah, young man,’ Beaumarchais said to me one day when I was joking over some duel which was then much talked about, ‘you do not know what despair a man feels when he sees the hilt of his sword upon his enemy’s breast!’ It was then that he related to me this adventure which was still afflicting him, although many years had elapsed since it had taken place. He never spoke of it without grief, and I should probably never have heard of it, if he had not thought it right to make me feel how dangerous it might be to joke about such fatal affairs, the number of which is increased much more by frivolity than by bravery.” It may be well to add, in relation to the death of the Chevalier du C---- that the protection of Mesdames, who personally interceded with the King, prevented an investigation being made so that Beaumarchais was secure.