“‘Oh my dear friend you are lost, some one has persuaded Mesdames that you are on very bad terms with your father, that he has driven you from his house and that, indignant at the tricks you have played him, he will not see you any more.’
“‘Oh, is that all? Then I do not count myself dead. Don’t disturb yourself.’ He said this and hurried back to Paris.
“‘You have always wished to see Versailles; I have an excellent opportunity to-day to show you the palace in detail.’ Father and son then returned with all possible speed. Beaumarchais took pains that they should be seen by the Princesses at the celebration of the mass, at their dinner, at their promenade, everywhere they were to be found.
“In the evening, still accompanied by his father, whom he left in an ante-chamber, he entered the apartments of the Princesses; he found them cold, dreamy, embarrassed, and
not wanting to look at him, trying to show more annoyance than they really felt.
“The most vivacious of them said to him with impatience, ‘With whom have you been all day?’
“‘Madame, with my father.’
“‘His father, Adelaide, that isn’t possible, we were told that they had quarreled.’
“‘I, Madame. I pass my life with him. He is in the ante-room—I have come for your orders; he is waiting for me, if you will deign to see him he will testify to the attachment which I have never ceased to have for him.’”
The Princesses, as Beaumarchais had well guessed, were anxious to see the father of their instructor and he was bidden to enter. As the elder Caron possessed, amongst his other qualities, scarcely less sense of a situation and power of adaptability than his son, he was at once at his ease. His personal dignity and sincerity of manner could not fail to produce a pleasing impression upon the young women who, as we have seen, demanded merit as the ground of their favor, so that in its results this intrigue which was intended to ruin the young man, really served to heighten the esteem in which he was held.