Beaumarchais had married three wives—and lost them, and was evidently a man who sought after feminine sympathy, a craving that became manifest to D’Eon, who deemed it worth her while to gratify it—and she succeeded. ‘Everybody tells me,’ he wrote to Vergennes, ‘that this insane woman is in love with me. She fancies that I have slighted her, and women never forgive an offence of that sort. I am far from slighting her, but who the d——l would ever have supposed that for the sake of serving my King zealously I should have to become the gallant knight of a captain of dragoons? The case is so ridiculous that I find it very difficult to write seriously.’[317] That marriage was contemplated became a common topic in Paris, and while none believed, few were prepared to doubt, or treat such gossip with contempt. We are able to quote from two letters in which the subject is mentioned by the writers, who had known D’Eon intimately during many years. ‘Two pieces of news to communicate, my dear Chevalier! The first is, that I have become a widow; the second, it is reported in Paris, and word has been written to me from London, that you wish Constance (her daughter) to be one also, you being about to marry Caron de Beaumarchais. Really, this sort of thing is never done....’[318] And her landlord, Mr. Lautem, in whose house she had lived almost unintermittingly since the autumn of 1763, says to her:— ‘... Every letter from Paris gives us to understand that M. Beaumarchais is come to London to be married to you. My reply is that I do not consider him sufficiently handsome (_beau_). M. de Morande told me this morning that M. de Beaumarchais was about leaving, and would not be here upon your return. I told him I had not heard from you....’[319] So long as Beaumarchais abstained from advancing the ‘other large sums’ promised in Article IV. of the Covenant, so long did the Chevalière refuse to carry out her engagement to discard her uniform for female attire; a refusal adopted by the King’s envoy as his motive for forbearing from taking any further interest in his refractory client. Loménie argues that it was precisely because she could not be prevailed upon to clothe herself in the garments of her sex, that no money was forthcoming; but it may fairly be contended, upon D’Eon’s argument, that Beaumarchais being the contracting power, were he to prove true to his obligations, she, as executrix, would necessarily be obliged to observe her engagements under pain of being deprived of the enjoyment of her annuity. It is not easy to account for the meanness and want of generosity displayed by Beaumarchais in his dealings with the Chevalière, his penuriousness leading him even to neglect the bonds he had given to Lord Ferrers, and upon the faith of which he was allowed to have the iron safe. [Sidenote: BEAUMARCHAIS IMPUGNED.]