Every heart took part in his joy, and everyone treated him like a celebrated man, to whose probity, due justice had at length been rendered.” Gudin’s enthusiasm for his friend was destined, however, to a singular recompense. Arrived in Paris, he had composed a lengthy epistle to Beaumarchais (Loménie II, p. 66), which began as follows: “The severe justice of Parliament has confounded the malice of thy enemies, though they had hoped that the dark art, which a _vile senator_ in unhappy times had made to incline the balance, would surprise the prudence of our true magistrates.” This chef-d’œuvre, composed of a hundred or more verses, had been inserted in a copy of _Courrier de l’Europe_, which was published in London, and which had altered the text by putting at the place of the words, “of a _vile senator_”—“_a profane senate_,” so that the personal allusion to the judge Goëzman was transformed into an allusion to the whole parliament Maupeou. But most of the members of this judicial body had gone back to their places in the grand council, from whence Maupeou had drawn them. Irritated at the triumph of Beaumarchais, and not daring to attack a man so strong in the favor of the public and the confidence of the ministers, “they seized this opportunity of scourging Beaumarchais over the back of his friend.” The latter was absent from Paris, busy with the despatching of vessels from one of the seaports, when, suddenly, a warrant, “issued,” says Loménie, “without the slightest warning, came to surprise the pacific Gudin.” As he sat at table one evening with his mother and niece, a letter was handed him, which proved to be from a friend, Mme. Denis, niece of Voltaire. He glanced it through and there read the startling announcement: “You are about to be arrested, and that for verses printed in the _Courrier de l’Europe_. You have not an instant to lose.” “I lost none,” wrote Gudin. “Having read the letter, I quitted the table without a word and passed into my room, where I hastily dressed myself, and then took refuge at the house of Beaumarchais. I read the letter to Mme. Beaumarchais.... “My first care was to send a messenger to prepare my mother for the strange visit she was about to receive, and bidding her not to alarm herself, and to reply that she did not know where I was, and that it was possible I was with Beaumarchais at a hundred leagues from Paris.” After calling about him several of his friends, men of experience, they deliberated what was to be done. “Do not allow yourself to be taken, these men of the grand council hate Beaumarchais, and are quite capable of revenging themselves upon his friend....”