Gudin says: “He received the most alarming notices, and the day after the imprisonment of the king, August 10th, a great multitude set out in the direction of his house, threatening to break down the iron gates if they were not immediately opened. I and two other persons were with him. “At first his desire was to open the doors and to speak to the multitude. But persuaded that secret enemies conducted the crowd, and that he would be assassinated before he could open his mouth, we induced him to leave the house by a side entrance.... As we were but four we decided to separate in the hope of deceiving those who sought him.... “Whatever the cause, once admitted and masters of the situation, someone proposed to swear that they would destroy nothing. The populace swore and kept its word. Always extreme, it even swore to hang anyone who stole anything. It visited the whole house, the closets, the granaries, the cellars, and the apartments of the women and my own. They wished to hang my own domestic, who seeing the crowd, ran from room to room with some of my silver hidden in her pocket; they thought she was stealing, and she was forced to call in the other domestics as witnesses. They searched everywhere and found only the gun, hunting case, and sword of the master of the house, these they did not disturb. “Thirsty from excitement and fatigue, that breathless troop, instead of opening a cask of wine, satisfied itself with water from the fountain. They even left the master’s watch hanging at the head of his bed, and other articles of jewelry about the rooms.... A troup conducted by a magistrate would not have been more exact in its perquisition, or more circumspect in its conduct. “Truth here resembles fable,—something extraordinary always mingled itself with the events which came to Beaumarchais. This conduct of the populace was the fruit of the benefits which he had poured upon the poor of his neighborhood. If he had not been loved, if he had not been dear to his domestics, all his goods would have been dissipated by pillage.” The next day Beaumarchais wrote to his daughter in Havre: “August 12, 1792.