They were married June 15th, 1796, Eugénie being nineteen, and her husband twenty-eight years of age. On the eve of her marriage, the Aunt Julie sketches for a friend the portrait of the young girl, in which she shows her as one in every way worthy of her father’s affection—and with a character which, while indicating many contradictory possibilities, had, nevertheless, great charm and lovableness as well as intellectual force. It shows, too, that the terrible experiences through which she had passed, had left their trace upon her. Time, however, softened this very complex and somewhat formal young lady. “Dying in 1820 the daughter of the author of the _Mariage de Figaro_,” says Loménie, “left in the hearts of all who knew her, the memory of a person of charming vivacity, of _finesse_ and goodness; loving and cultivating the arts with passion, an excellent musician, woman of the world, and at the same time an accomplished mother.” The young man whom she married proved himself in every way worthy of her. In 1789 he was aide-de-camp of General Lafayette, and later held honorable official positions under the empire, the Restoration, and the government of July. In 1840 he was made _maréchal de camp de la garde nationiale_, which post he held until 1848 when he resigned, at the age of eighty-four years. “In 1854,” writes Loménie, “he still lives, surrounded in his flourishing old age by the respectful affection of all those who know how to appreciate the noble qualities of his heart and his character.” But to return to Beaumarchais; hardly had he found himself reunited to his family than he wrote to his faithful Gudin, bidding him return. The Revolution, however, had left this good man so destitute that he was obliged to request a loan in order to make the journey. This was at once promised. He wrote, August 26, 1796, “I start as soon as I shall have received the ten louis.... My whole heart glows at the thought of finding myself again under the roof with your happy family. And Oh, I shall see you again! How I regret that aerostatic machines are not already perfected.... But any conveyance is good, if it only conducts me to you. Adieu my good friend; keep well. I will write you the moment of my setting out.” Of their meeting, he writes later, “I came from the depths of my retreat to embrace my friend. Meeting after so many years, after so many atrocious events, was it not to be saved from the dangers of shipwreck and to find ourselves upon the rocks? It was in a way like escaping from the tomb, to embrace each other among the dead, after an unhoped for resurrection.” Beaumarchais’s activities of this period continued to be the most varied. He entered with interest into the changing fortunes of the republic—which he accepted and over whose future he tried at times to become enthusiastic. In March, 1797, he had written to a friend: