“ ... My thoughts turned upon thy mother, and thee and my poor sisters. I said with a sigh, ‘My child is safe; my age is advanced; my life is worth very little and this would not accelerate the death by nature but by a few years. But my daughter! Her mother! They are safe? Tears flowed from my eyes. Consoled by this thought I occupied myself with the last term of life, believing it very near. Then, my head hollow through so much contending emotion, I tried to harden myself and to think of nothing. I watched mechanically the men come and go; I said, ‘The moment approaches,’ but I thought of it as a man exhausted, whose ideas begin to wander, because for four hours I had been standing in this state of violent emotion which changed into one like death. Then feeling faint, I seated myself on a bank and awaited my fate, without being otherwise alarmed.” “When the crowd had retired,” says Gudin in his narrative, “Beaumarchais returned and dined in his home, more astonished to find all undisturbed than he would have been to have seen the whole devastated....” “And so we continued to live alone in that great habitation, occupied in meditating on the misfortunes of the state and sometimes upon those which menaced us.... “On the 23rd of August, upon awakening I perceived armed men in the streets, sentinels at the doors and under the windows. I hastened to the apartment of my friend—I found him surrounded by sinister men occupied in searching his papers and putting his effects under seal. Tranquil in the midst of them, he directed their operations. When they were through, they took him with them and I was left alone in that vast palace, guarded by _sans culottes_ whose aspect made me doubt whether they were there to conserve the property, or to give the signal for pillage.” Beaumarchais had been carried off to the _mairie_ (police court) “where he defended himself so perfectly,” continues Gudin, “that his denouncers were confounded and about to liberate him when Marat denounced him anew.... He was sent to l’Abbaye along with others whose virtues were a title of proscription. “At the end of a week his name was called. General consternation in the prison. “‘You are called for.’ “‘By whom?’ “‘M. Manuel. Is he your enemy?’ “‘I never saw him.’ Beaumarchais went out. All the assembly sat silent. “‘Who is M. Manuel?’ demanded Beaumarchais. “‘I am he. I come to save you. Your denouncer, Colmar, is declared culpable—he is in prison—you are free.’ ... “Two days later came the September massacres. And thus a second time his life was saved. ‘Long afterwards he learned that a woman to whom he had rendered an eminent service had solicited Manuel to obtain the liberty of her benefactor.’” (_Gudin_, p. 430.) “It would seem natural,” says M. de Loménie, “that in such a moment, the author of the _Mariage de Figaro_ would consent to set aside the matter of the guns and occupy himself with his own personal safety.”