An older sister, Françoise, already had married a celebrated watchmaker of Paris, named Lépine, with whom the family tie was never broken. Her home served as a place of rendezvous for the scattered members of the family during those cruel years, of which we shall have to speak, when the property of Beaumarchais was seized and he himself degraded from his rights as citizen. A son of this sister afterwards served as an officer in the American army under the name of “Des Epinières.” The eldest sister of all, Marie-Josèphe, had left her father’s house when her brother was a young lad just returned from the school at Alfort. She had married an architect named Guilbert and had settled at Madrid in Spain. She took with her one of the younger sisters, Marie Louise, who continued to live with her there. The two sisters kept a milliner’s shop and the younger, Lizette as she was called, became the fiancée of a gifted young Spaniard, Clavico, of whom we shall hear presently from the pen of Beaumarchais himself. Many years later the elder sister returned to France, a widow without fortune, accompanied by Lizette and two young children. Beaumarchais gave them both a yearly allowance, and at the death of the widow Guilbert, continued to provide for her children whom he gathered under his roof in Paris. Lizette had died some time previously. Mademoiselle de Boisgarnier married very soon after her brother’s return from Spain. She was, however, taken early from her family and friends. She died leaving a daughter who, needless to say, was cared for by her generous uncle, and who later in life owed to him her advantageous settlement and dowry. She seems to have inherited a large share of the family gifts and to have been witty and attractive. In the family circle she went by the name of “the muse of Orleans,” from the city in which she was married and settled.