“‘July 27, 1790. “‘I send you, Madame, a bill of 200 livres for your unfortunate pupil. This is for the year. I will have the honor of giving to you or to her, in money, the first time I go to the convent, three louis, which will make six francs a month for this year, the same as I give to my daughter; but I conjure you, Madam, that my help does not force or press her vocation. I should be distressed if she were in any way thwarted as to her future. I have not the honor of knowing her; it is the good which you have said of her which determined me. That she remains free, and less unhappy, this is all the thanks I ask; keep the secret for me. I am surrounded with virulent enemies.’ “One cannot,” continues Bonneville, “hide oneself more gallantly, to do good. “The prioress hastened to divulge the secret; and to the rough draft of the letter of Beaumarchais found among his papers, is attached a note in which his young protégée expressed with emotion all her gratitude to her benefactor.” The violences directed against the religious establishments soon forced Beaumarchais to bring his daughter home. It was about this time that we find a letter, addressed by the author of the _Mariage de Figaro_, to the Municipal officers of Paris, begging, with his characteristic energy, that the churches be opened, and more masses be said in the Quartier-Vieille-rue-du-Temple. “In this letter,” says Loménie, “it is the husband, the brother, but especially the father who speaks. The author of the _Mariage de Figaro_ adored his only daughter, he had just brought her home from the convent, and if he went himself very little to mass, he was not sorry to have her go for him. It is this side of Beaumarchais, so good, so simple, so jovial, so gay, that makes us love him, and which comes out with special force in a song which he wrote to celebrate the young girl’s return under her father’s roof. This song has been classed as one of the best of the poetic inspirations of Beaumarchais. The turn _naïf_ of the old popular songs is found in it, combined with a graceful mixture of friendliness, finesse and gaiety.” The charm of these verses, which it is impossible to render into English, gave the song a great popularity, and it circulated widely. In it, there was question of the marriage of Mlle. Eugénie, where the father jestingly says: “My _gentilhomme_, is that all you are? “Parchment and blazonry will never open my house. “_If someone really tender, Sings thee songs in the air, Let me hear them For thy Father sees clear And I will say if there is reason That he should enter here._ “_Should some excellent young man See heaven in thy eyes, Say to him ‘Beautiful astronomer, Speak to that good old man, He is my father, and there is reason That he should choose his son-in-law.’_