“Citizen Durand was sent back to Citizen Beaumarchais with a revised passport, which ran thus; ‘to conduct him to his destination and to continue his mission;’ because it seemed important to procure the guns for the government at whatever time that should be found possible, and also that the enemy should be prevented from seizing and distributing them in Belgium among the partisans of the house of Austria.
“The department of Paris placed the Citizen Beaumarchais upon the list of émigrés and placed seals upon his property.
“The committee decreed that since the Citizen Beaumarchais was on a mission he should not be treated as an émigré, because he was absent on a mission for the government. The department removed the seals.
“Some time after, the citizen Beaumarchais was replaced on the list of émigrés. There had been no new motive. The mission was not finished, his negotiations continued to be useful, he had not been recalled.... However, they persisted in considering him an émigré! ... the presence of citizen Beaumarchais in a foreign country was necessary up to the moment when the secret of his mission having been divulged, the English carried off the guns from the armory at Tervère to their ports, which they did last year.
“Nothing would then have prevented citizen Beaumarchais from returning to France because he could no longer hope to be able to fulfil his mission; but his name still rested on the list of émigrés and he could not return until it was erased.
“It was an injustice ever to have placed it upon the list of émigrés, since he was absent for the service of the Republic.
“Robert Lindet.”
“To the Minister of Police.”
This letter and the ardent solicitations of the wife and friends of the proscribed man, finally induced the committee to have his name erased from the list of émigrés, and so after three years of absence the author of the Mariage de Figaro was able to return to his native land.