“‘I received a letter from Durand at Madrid very satisfactory in regard to the obliging regrets of the honest people of Madrid as well as for the affairs to which I have there attached him. I am absolutely alone, my valet de chambre stayed at Bayonne with a groom and three beautiful horses, which at Paris ought to pay the price of their journey as well as my own.’”
No record has come down to us of the meeting of Beaumarchais and his family after their long separation, but now that we know them all so intimately it is not difficult to reconstruct the scene, the venerable father pressing his son to his bosom, the tears of tenderness welling to his eyes, the sisters rushing to embrace him, the friends and domestics even, eager to clasp his hand, and all radiant with the thought of having him in their midst. Then this outburst of affection over, what gaiety and mirth follow, and all that human expansiveness which comes so spontaneously from the heart!
But though the family tie remained as strong as ever, a decided change had come already into the situation between him and Pauline. Nevertheless, matters were smoothed over and the marriage was definitely decided upon. Misunderstandings, however, continued from time to time, and in the midst of these troubles, a rumor reached the ears of Beaumarchais, that the Chevalier du S. had intentions upon Pauline. Beaumarchais, furious, wrote a letter to the Chevalier who in turn defended himself in a letter which is as follows: “It seems to me, Monsieur, that a counterfeit story ought to find less credit in your eyes than in those of others, since you have been all your life the butt of such reports. For the rest, I beg you to believe that I do not write to obtain grace, but because I owe to Mlle. de L. B.—to
make known the truth upon a point which compromises her, and because it would be hard and very hard for me to lose your esteem.”
Pauline replied to the same charge with an indifference which shows a great change of sentiment on her part.
“As I was ignorant of the project of M. le Chevalier before I received your letter, and as I know nothing of the matter, you will permit me to inform myself before I reply. As to the reproach which you make in regard to Julie, I do not feel that I merit it, if I have not sent to know how she is, it is because I have been assured that she was very much better and had been seen at her window, which made me think that it was true. If my aunt were not ill, which prevents my leaving, I would assuredly go to see her. I embrace her with all my heart.”
M. de Loménie says: “The two were perhaps innocent at that moment, if I can judge from a letter of a cousin of Pauline’s and a friend of Beaumarchais, very badly treated by the latter in regard to this affair, ‘When you have a more tranquil mind so that you will do me justice,’ says the cousin, ‘I will speak openly with you and prove to you that you, who condemn others so easily, are more culpable than those you believe to be dissimulating and perfidious. Nothing is so pure as the heart of the dear Pauline, nothing nobler than that of the Chevalier, or more sincere than my own, and you look upon all three as though we were monsters.’”
The above letter of November 8, 1765, is all we have to fix the date of the previous one. During the interval which follows, it is impossible to determine exactly what happened, but true it is that by February 11th, 1766, the definite rupture had taken place and even the cousin undertakes
no longer to shield the “dear Pauline.” As to the Chevalier, who a year before had written of Julie, “She is the unique object of my tenderest desires,” it may be that Julie herself had much to do with his estrangement, for in a letter already quoted we have her own authority for believing that she was never very deeply in love, and her “maliciousness,” may have helped to cool the ardor of the Chevalier. Certain it is, that Julie with all her warmth and expansiveness was not by nature any more formed for absorbing passions than was her brother. A letter belonging to a very much earlier period, proves that love was at no time a very serious matter with her, while it paints to the life the gaiety of her character. She writes, “You must know, my dear Lhénon upon what terms of folly I am with your brother. His air of interest for me, of which I wrote a month ago, has developed singularly and beautified itself since our friends have gone to the country. He comes nearly every evening to supper and stays till midnight or one o’clock. Ah my dear Lhénon, you should hear him recounting to me, and me retorting in the same tone with that air of folie that you have always known me to possess; but in the midst of all these pleasantries I have sometimes found a happy way of expressing myself, so as to persuade him seriously that I do not love him, and I believe him convinced, although I have never said half as many sweet things to him as I do now, because of an agreement which we have to love each other two days of the week, he has chosen Monday and Saturday, and I took Thursday and Sunday. On those days we say very tender things, although it is agreed that there shall always be one farouche when the other loves.”
This to be sure was a girlish fancy, but the character of Julie retained to the end much of the folie of which she