“‘I have done nothing to merit having lost it,’ he said, ‘I shall not go from here until judged and justified....’ “If he had not been husband and father, his obstinacy would no doubt have carried him to the point of demanding justice of the king against the king himself ... but he could not permit himself to pierce the hearts of his wife and daughter by condemning them to eternal tears in the vain hope of tearing from power the avowal of an injustice.... “Princes, Marshals of France, persons of every rank had inscribed their names at his door during his detention and came to felicitate him on his return....” And what was the cause that had operated to bring about this sudden outburst of power directed against the author of the _Mariage de Figaro_? It was this. In a dispute carried on with vigor in the pages of _le Journal de Paris_, between Beaumarchais and certain anonymous attacks directed against him, the former had made use of the expression, “After having been forced to conquer _lions_ and _tigers_ to have my comedy played....” “_Lions_ and _tigers_!” Evidently the daring man meant the King and Queen of France! The news was brought at once to the royal presence. Louis XVI, already annoyed beyond measure at the success of the play, to the performance of which he had been forced to consent in spite of himself, only needed some pretext to vent his displeasure, “so without rising from the card table at which he was seated,” says Loménie, “he wrote, if we may credit the authority of the author of _Souvenirs d’un Sexagénaire_, M. Arnault, ... upon the back of a seven of spades, in pencil, the order for the immediate arrest of Beaumarchais and joining insult to rigor, something which no sovereign is permitted to use, he ordered him conducted, not to an ordinary prison, but one ridiculous and shameful for a man of his years, to Saint-Lazare, where depraved adolescents were detained. “To treat as a young good-for-nothing, a man of his age and celebrity, a man to whom confidential missions were entrusted, who carried the secrets of state, who was charged with the most important operations, and whose talents were a powerful attraction to the public and to the aristocracy, was not only a gross injustice, it was a most serious fault, because it became manifest to everyone how pernicious the influence of uncontrolled power might become even in the hands of the best prince. This arbitrary act is the only one of its kind that can be held as a reproach to Louis XVI.... “The next day, when the motive was demanded for that incarceration, the government said nothing, as it had nothing to say, for it would have been difficult to make anyone believe that Beaumarchais intended to compare Louis XVI to a _tiger_. The public became uneasy and began to murmur, and the day after to murmur loudly.”