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. (Beaumarchais'
Narrative, Memoires sur les Prisons (Paris, 1823), i. 179-90.) 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 Boulevard 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 be Diana's, breaks his old teeth now,
gnawing mere whinstones; and must 'fly to England;' and, returning
from England, must creep into the corner, and lie quiet, toothless
(moneyless),--all this let the lover of Figaro fancy, and weep for.
We here, without weeping, not without sadness, wave the withered tough
fellow-mortal our farewell. His Figaro has returned to the French stage;
nay is, at this day, sometimes named the best piece there. And indeed,
so long as Man's Life can ground itself only on artificiality and
aridity; each new Revolt and Change of Dynasty turning up only a new
stratum of dry rubbish, and no soil yet coming to view,--may it not
be good to protest against such a Life, in many ways, and even in the
Figaro way?

Chapter 3.1.II