fifteen louis that of believing me, with the respectful consideration which is due to you
Madam, your, etc.’”
Bonnefon says: “To this demand the wife of the counsellor grew indignant and cried aloud. Beaumarchais was not to be intimidated and maintained his demand. It was then that the counsellor intervened and complained first to Monsieur the duc de la Vrillière and then to M. de Sartine; badly instructed perhaps and feeling sure of an easy triumph over an enemy already half-vanquished, he brought a suit for calumny before the parliament.
“Beaumarchais did not draw back. The counsellor accused him of attempt at corruption; his presence of mind did not desert him. He replied to everything with a vivacity and an apropos truly remarkable. Listen to him.
“... ‘It is time that I speak. Let me wash myself from the reproach of corruption by a calculation and some very simple reflections.
“‘It cost me a hundred louis to obtain an audience of M. Goëzman. Be so good as to follow the trace of that money and then judge, if from the distance where I remained from the reporter it was possible that I had formed the mad project of corrupting him.
“‘In ceding to the necessity of sacrificing one hundred louis which I (one person) did not possess; a friend (two persons) offered them to me, my sister (three) received them from his hands, she confided them to sieur Dairolles (four); who gave them to the sieur Le-Jay (five) to be given to Madame Goëzman (six) who kept them, and finally Monsieur Goëzman (seven), whom I could see only at that price and who knew nothing about the whole affair. See then from M. Goëzman to me a chain of seven persons of
which he says I hold the first link as corruptor, while he holds the last as incorruptible. Very good. But if he is judged incorruptible how will he prove that I am corruptor?’ ...”
Monsieur Loménie, entering into more detail, says of Goëzman: “He must have been convinced that his wife had seriously compromised herself. Compromised himself through her, he had to choose between several different measures; all of them, in presence of a litigant discontented and fearless, offered great disadvantage for his reputation; the one which he adopted was incontestably the most daring, but also the most dishonorable.
“Starting from the idea that Beaumarchais had not the force to resist him, he imagined that in taking the initiative and attacking him while maneuvering in such a way that the truth might not be made known, he might be able to ruin him who had given the fifteen louis, and save her who had received them. It will be seen that the stratagem of Goëzman was baffled and his crime cruelly punished.”