"Thunderstruck at this intelligence, and unable to believe it, I went up to the room he had occupied. Every thing belonging to him had been carried off. Perplexed and dismayed, I returned home, and had no sooner arrived than a courier from Aranjuez brought me a letter, which he had been ordered to deliver with the utmost speed. It was from the French ambassador. He informed me that the governor of Madrid had just been with him, to tell him that Señor Clavijo had retired to a place of safety, in order to protect himself from the violence he apprehended from me, as I had, a few days before, compelled him, in his own house, and with a pistol at his breast, to sign an engagement to marry my sister. The Marquis, at the same time, expressed his belief of my innocence; but feared that the affair might be turned to my disadvantage, and requested that I would do nothing whatever until I had seen him. "I was utterly confounded. This man, who for weeks had been treating me like a brother,--who had been writing me letter upon letter, full of affection,--who had earnestly besought me to give him my sister, and had visited her again and again as her betrothed husband,--this monster had been all the while secretly plotting my destruction! "Suddenly an officer of the Walloon guards came into the room. 'M. de Beaumarchais,' he said, 'you have not a moment to lose. Save yourself, or to-morrow morning you will be arrested in your bed. The order is given, and I am come to apprise you of it. Your adversary is a monster. He has contrived to set almost everybody against you, and has led you into snare after snare, till he has found means to make himself your public accuser. Fly instantly, I beseech you. Once immured in a dungeon, you will have neither protection nor defence.' "'I fly!--I make my escape!--I will die sooner. Say not a word more, my friends. Let me have a travelling carriage to-morrow morning at four o'clock, and meanwhile leave me to prepare for my journey to Aranjuez.' "I shut myself up in my room. My mind was utterly exhausted. I threw myself into a chair, where I remained for two hours in a state of total vacuity of thought. At length I roused myself. I reflected on all the circumstances of the case, and on the abundant proofs of my integrity. I sat down to my desk, and, with the rapidity of a man in a high fever, I wrote an exact journal of my actions since my arrival at Madrid: names, dates, conversations,--everything sprang, as it were, into my memory, and fixed itself under my pen. I was still writing at five in the morning, when I was told that my carriage was ready. Some friends wanted to accompany me. 'I wish to be alone,' I said. 'Twelve hours of solitude are not more than necessary to calm the agitation of my frame.' I set out for Aranjuez.