“Render justice to my good heart, noble Marquis de Lafayette; Your glorious youth, would it not have been ruined without my wise counsel and the advances of my money? You have very well repaid all that was loaned you by my orders; and I say it to your glory, you have added fifty louis more than were due to me, to join that money to the charitable institution which I was founding of the _pauvres mères nourrices_.... “And you, Baron von Steuben, Comtes Pulasky, Bienousky, you, Tronçon, Prudhomme, and a hundred others, who have never acquitted their debts to me, come out of your tombs and speak! “Fifteen hundred thousand francs at least, of services rendered, fill a portfolio, which probably will never be acquitted by anyone, and more than a thousand unfortunates whose needs I have anticipated are ready to raise their voice in my favor.... The third of my fortune is in the hands of my debtors, and since I have aided the poor of Sainte-Marguerite, four hundred letters at least are on my desk from unfortunates, raising their hands to me.... My heart is torn, but I cannot reply to all. “September 2, 1789.” But from the accusations of his enemies, and the pleadings of his own cause, let us turn, before worse calamities overtake him, to contemplate anew the charming picture, which the interior of his home presents. It was in 1791 that he took his family to occupy the splendid new residence which we have just now mentioned. Its mistress Madame de Beaumarchais was a woman of rare intelligence and energy of character; “her physiognomy,” says Bonneville, “offered an expression full of vivacity and intelligence. The eye is superb, tempered by long lashes, heightened by the daring arch of the brows; the mouth is admirably well formed; the chin full, the complexion brilliant.... The reputation for beauty of Madame de Beaumarchais was general. The public ratified on all occasions, the praise of her friends. It is traditional in her family that she rarely left her home without being recognized and followed at a distance by a cortège of admirers, drawn not only by the celebrity of the name she bore, but also by the prestige of her bearing. Often, even, she was obliged to gain her carriage to avoid the importunity of the too flattering attentions. “Beaumarchais, as he confesses perhaps superfluously, was far from being a devotee; still he respected the beliefs of others; he had desired especially that his daughter should be brought up piously. Eugénie was at this moment a pupil at the convent of Bon Secours; her father often went there to visit her. The Superior, who had had proof of the generous and good heart of the father of her pupil, permitted herself to speak of one of the school-mates of Eugénie who was unable to pay the expenses of her education. The author of the _Mariage de Figaro_ replied at once in the following delicate manner: