“Shortly after this the value of paper money decreased still more and the price of commodities increased in alarming proportion. In another letter to her sister-in-law Julie gave the following details:
“‘Ten thousand francs which I have scattered in the last two weeks, give me such a fright, seize me with such pity that I no longer know how to count my income. In the last three days, wood has risen from 4,200 francs to 6,500 and all the costs of transporting and piling are in proportion, so that my load of wood has cost me 7,100 francs. Every week it costs from 700 to 800 francs for a pot-au-feu, and other meat without counting butter, eggs, and a thousand other details; laundry work has increased so that 8,000 francs are not enough for one month. All this makes me impatient and I solemnly affirm that I have not for two years allowed myself a luxury, or gratified a single whim, or made any other expenditures but for the house; nevertheless the needs I have are urgent enough to make me need potfulls of money.’
“But if the sister of Beaumarchais is at the point of famine, the wife and the daughter are no better off; I see in the correspondence of Madame de Beaumarchais that one of her friends went the rounds of the neighborhood to try to obtain some bread which was becoming rarer than diamonds; ‘I am told,’ she wrote, the 5th of June 1795, ‘that at Briare, flour is to be had, if that is true I will make a bargain with some country man and send it direct to you by the barge which goes from Briare to Paris, but that will greatly increase the cost. Please tell me what you think, while waiting I still hope to get hold of a small loaf somewhere. Oh, if I had the gift of miracles, I would send you, not manna from heaven—but good bread and very white!’
“When Beaumarchais in exile, learned all the deprivations from which his family suffered he learned also that they had sufficient moral courage to support them. Gaiety had not wholly disappeared from that interior which used to be so joyous; even if exposed to starvation, the frightful guillotine no longer operated and one began to breathe more freely.”
One of his old friends wrote to him, “See now the soup tureen of the family arrive, that is to say, upon the mahogany table (there is no such thing as a cloth) is a plate of beans, two potatoes, a carafe of wine, with very much water. Thy daughter asks for a white poodle to use as a napkin and clean the plates—but no matter, come, come; if we have nothing to eat we have plenty to laugh about. Come, I tell thee, for thy wife needs a miller since thy salon is decorated with a flour mill; while thy Eugénie charms thee upon her piano, thou wilt prepare her breakfast, while thy wife knits thy stockings, and thy future son-in-law turns baker; for here everyone has his trade and that is why our cows are so well guarded.
“It is too droll to see our women, without perruque in the morning, filling each one her occupation, because you must know that each one of us is at their service and because in our régime, if there are no masters, there are at least valets. This letter costs thee at least a hundred francs counting the paper, pens, the oil of the lamp, because for economy’s sake I came to thy house to write it. We embrace thee with all our hearts.”
And his faithful Gudin wrote him, though in much more somber strain, from his retreat in the country: “My most ardent desire, my friend, is to see you again and to press you to my heart; but circumstances are such that I had to leave Paris where I could no longer subsist. I have taken refuge in a little hamlet fifty miles away, where there are thirteen peasant cabins. The house which I inhabit was a tiny priory, occupied once by a single monk.” And after a very long and profoundly pessimistic discourse upon the sad condition of affairs which he likens to the barbarity which formerly engulfed Greece and Egypt and Assyria, Sicily, and Italy, he terminates thus:
“Adieu my good friend, I would have wished to have talked to you of yourself, of your family, of those whom you love, the regrets which we feel to meet no more together. Our hearts like your own, are crushed with sorrow.... I embrace you and sigh for the happy moment that will unite us.
“Gudin.”