"'Your very humble, etc., De Beaumarchais.
"'P. S. I keep a copy of this letter as well as of the first, in order that the purity of my intentions may serve to justify me in case of misfortune; but I hope to convince you Saturday that far from hunting a quarrel, no one should make greater effort than I to avoid one. I cannot explain myself in writing.'"
Upon the copy of the same letter is written with the hand of Beaumarchais the following lines which explain the postscriptum and which treat of the duel with the Chevalier du C. of which we have spoken already. "This happened eight or ten days after my unhappy affair with the Chevalier du C, which affair would have ruined me but for the goodness of Mesdames who spoke with the king. M. de Sablières asked for an explanation of the postscriptum of my letter from Laumur, at whose house I lent him the money, and what is amusing is that this explanation took away all his desire to bring the money himself."
We have chosen this instance among numerous others to show the difficulty of the position in which Beaumarchais found himself placed. Gudin says, "The efforts of envy against him, fortified the character to which nature had given so much energy. He learned to watch unceasingly over himself, to master the impetuosity of his passions, to conserve in the most perilous and unexpected circumstances, a perfect coolness united with the most active presence of mind. Everything which seemed prepared to destroy him turned to his advantage and enabled him to rise superior to circumstances."
It was very soon after acquiring the foundations of a fixed fortune, that Beaumarchais carried into execution the cherished dream of his life, which was to gather all the members of his family under his own roof and to lavish upon them all those comforts of life, in which the limited means of the elder Caron had not permitted them to indulge. His mother was no longer living but there remained his father and two unmarried sisters at home. The elder Caron had, two years before, at his son's request given up his trade of watchmaker, receiving from the latter a lifelong pension and a considerable sum of money to cover certain heavy losses which had come to him in the way of business.