“_If he has some talent What matters his fortune? Judge, writer, soldier, Esprit, virtue, sweet reason— These are the titles valued here._” “The result of all this was that Beaumarchais was deluged,” says Loménie, “with the most singular demands in marriage for his daughter. Here it is from a nobleman, but one who makes no point of his blazon, who despises the fortune which he has not, who esteems only virtue, and who aspires to marry Mlle. Eugénie and her dot; there, from a father, perfectly unknown to Beaumarchais, who begs him to keep the daughter for his son, still in college; farther on it is a captain, who has only his sword, but who is worthy of being a Marshal of France. Politely to turn aside this avalanche of virtuous and disinterested suitors, the father of Eugénie wrote a letter which, with slight modifications, serves him for all, and of which the following is a sample: “Paris, May 21, 1791. “Although your letter, Monsieur, appears to have its origin in a simple jest, since it is serious and honest, I owe you a reply. “You have been deceived regarding my daughter. Scarcely fourteen years old, she is far from the time when I will allow her to choose a master, reserving for myself in this only, the right to advise. Perhaps you are quite ignorant of the exact situation. I have only lately taken my daughter from the convent; the joy of her return drew from my indolence a song, which after having been sung at my table, went the rounds. The tone _bonhomme_ which I there took, joined to the jest of her future establishment, has made many persons think that I already thought of her settlement. “But may I be preserved from engaging her before the time when her own heart will give her a consciousness of what it all means, and Monsieur, this will be an affair of years, not of months. “What the song says jestingly, however, will certainly be my rule to enlighten her young heart. Fortune touches me less than talents and virtue, because I wish her to be happy.... “Beaumarchais.” But the young girl’s presence under her father’s roof was to be of short duration. Very soon, his anxiety for their safety led him to dispatch his family to Havre. For, says La Harpe, “His house was placed at the entrance of that terrible faubourg like the Palace of Portici at the foot of Vesuvius.... The eruption of the volcano was as yet only at rare intervals; that of the faubourg was at every moment. It is inconceivable that under the lava always boiling, that house was not engulfed.” So it is here we will leave him to await alone,—except for his faithful Gudin—the coming of the storm, which his own writings had done so much to rouse, but which he neither desired, nor, to the end, comprehended. [Illustration: HOUSE OF BEAUMARCHAIS] CHAPTER XXV