An interested friend had succeeded in penetrating to the presence of Goëzman the night before and the judge promised to see Beaumarchais the next morning. The latter says: “If ever an audience seemed sure, this one certainly did, promised on the one hand by the reporter while his wife received the price on the other. Nevertheless, in spite of the assurances of all, we were no happier than on former occasions.... Santerre and I remained for an hour and a half, but the orders were positive, we were not allowed to cross the threshold.
“But I had lost my suit, the evil was consummated. The same evening, sieur Dairolles returned to my sister the two rolls of fifty louis each and the watch. As for the fifteen louis, he said since they were required by the secretary of M. Goëzman, Madame Goëzman believed herself discharged from returning them.
“This conduct of the secretary was an enigma to me, I wished to fathom it. In the beginning he had modestly refused ten louis voluntarily offered him. I begged the friend who finally had induced the secretary to accept the ten louis
to inquire if he had received the fifteen louis given to Madame Goëzman for him. He replied that they had never been offered to him and if they had been, he would not have accepted them....
“Stung by the dishonest means employed to retain the fifteen louis, believing even that the sieur Le-Jay whom I did not know at all perhaps had wished to keep them, I demanded of him through the sieur Dairolles what had become of them.
“He affirmed that Madame Goëzman had refused to give them back, and assured him that it had been arranged that in any case they were lost to me. He could not endure that it should be supposed that he had kept them, the lady herself was not to be seen, but I might write to her.
“The 21st of April, that is, seventeen days after the judgment, I wrote her the following letter.
“‘I have not the honor, Madame, of being personally known to you and I should be very far from importuning you, if after losing my suit, when you were good enough to return to me the two rolls of louis and my watch, you had at the same time returned the fifteen louis, which the common friend who negotiated between us left you in supererogation.
“‘I have been so horribly treated in the report of Monsieur, your husband, and my defence has been so trampled under foot before him that it is not just that to the immense loss which this report has cost me should be added that of fifteen louis which it is impossible should have strayed in your hands. If injustice must be paid for, it should not be paid by him who has so cruelly suffered.
“‘I hope you will be so good as to respect my demand, and that you will add to the justice of returning me these