“Some time after, the citizen Beaumarchais was replaced on the list of _émigrés_. There had been no new motive. The mission was not finished, his negotiations continued to be useful, he had not been recalled.... However, they persisted in considering him an _émigré_!... the presence of citizen Beaumarchais in a foreign country was necessary up to the moment when the secret of his mission having been divulged, the English carried off the guns from the armory at Tervère to their ports, which they did last year. “Nothing would then have prevented citizen Beaumarchais from returning to France because he could no longer hope to be able to fulfil his mission; but his name still rested on the list of _émigrés_ and he could not return until it was erased. “It was an injustice ever to have placed it upon the list of _émigrés_, since he was absent for the service of the Republic. “Robert Lindet.” “To the Minister of Police.” This letter and the ardent solicitations of the wife and friends of the proscribed man, finally induced the committee to have his name erased from the list of _émigrés_, and so after three years of absence the author of the _Mariage de Figaro_ was able to return to his native land. CHAPTER XXVI “_Qu’étais’je donc? Je n’étais que moi, et moi tel que je suis resté, libre au milieu des fers, serein dans les plus grands dangers, faisant tête a tous les orages, menant les affaires d’une main et la guerre de l’autre, paresseux comme un âne et travaillant toujours, en butte à mille calomnies, mais, heureux dans mon intérieur, n’ayant jamais été d’aucune coterie, ni litéraire, ni politique, ni mystique, n’ayant fait de cour à personne, et partout repoussé de tous.... C’est le mystère de ma vie, en vain j’essaie de le résoudre._” Beaumarchais After His Return from Exile—Takes Up All His Business Activities—Marriage of Eugénie—Her Portrait Drawn by Julie—Beaumarchais’s Varied Interests—Correspondence with Bonaparte—Pleads for Lafayette Imprisoned—Death of Beaumarchais—Conclusion. “On his return to Paris, July 5th, 1796, Beaumarchais,” says Loménie, “found himself faced with a fortune ruined, not alone as so many others had been in the general crisis, but still more, by the confiscation of his revenues, the disappearance of his papers, and of the debts owing to him. His beautiful house was going to destruction, his garden torn up. While on one hand his debtors had disembarrassed themselves of their obligations by settling with the state in paper money, his creditors were waiting to seize him by the throat. He had accounts to give to, and to demand of the State, who, after confiscating his fortune, held still 745,000 francs deposited by him when he undertook the mission to secure the 60,000 guns....”