the people are come to seek you; they are knocking, like to break-in the door! 'And they were in fact knocking in a terrible manner (d'une façon terrible). I fling on my coat, forgetting even the waistcoat, nothing on my feet but slippers; and say to him'—And he, alas, answers mere negatory incoherences, panic interjections. And through the shutters and crevices, in front or rearward, the dull street-lamps disclose only streetfuls of haggard countenances; clamorous, bristling with pikes: and you rush distracted for an outlet, finding none;—and have to take refuge in the crockery-press, down stairs; and stand there, palpitating in that imperfect costume, lights dancing past your key-hole, tramp of feet overhead, and the tumult of Satan, 'for four hours and more'! And old ladies, of the quarter, started up (as we hear next morning); rang for their bonnes and cordial-drops, with shrill interjections: and old gentlemen, in their shirts, 'leapt garden-walls'; flying while none pursued; one of whom unfortunately broke his leg.[1] Those sixty-thousand stand of Dutch Arms (which never arrive), and the bold stroke of trade, have turned out so ill!—
Beaumarchais escaped for this time; but not for the next time, ten days after. On the evening of the Twenty-ninth he is still in that chaos of the Prisons, in saddest wrestling condition; unable to get justice, even to get audience; 'Panis scratching his head' when you speak to him, and making off. Nevertheless let the lover of Figaro know that Procureur Manuel, a Brother in Literature, found him, and delivered him once more. But how the lean demigod, now shorn of his splendour, had to lurk in barns, to roam over harrowed fields, panting for life; and to wait under eavesdrops, and sit in darkness 'on the Boulevarde amid paving-stones and boulders,' longing for one word of any Minister, or Minister's Clerk, about those accursed Dutch muskets, and getting none,—with heart fuming in spleen, and terror, and suppressed canine-madness; alas, how the swift sharp hound, once fit to
- ↑ Beaumarchais' Narrative, Mémoires sur les Prisons (Paris, 1823), i. 179–90.
