"My good friend, in this conversation, your heart and your mind must work at the same time; nothing resists you when you really set your heart upon it. Give me this proof of your tenderness. I shall regard your success in this as the most convincing proof of the zeal which you have for what you so sweetly call your happiness and which your Pauline could not read without a fearful beating of the heart. Adieu, my good friend, I hope that your first visit when you come back from Versailles, will be to my uncle. Think of all the respect which you owe him if he is to be yours. I stop, for I feel myself ready to write foolishly. _Bonsoir, méchant!_"
Whatever may have taken place at the meeting between Beaumarchais and the uncle, the results were not such as permitted an immediate marriage. It was therefore postponed until the Santo Domingo matter cleared itself. In the meantime, the lovers saw each other frequently and in the intervals letters were exchanged. Those of Beaumarchais are in every tone; sometimes a lengthy and profound dissertation on the nature of love which accords well with the philosophic side which is by no means the least developed in his surprisingly complex character; others reveal some touch of a longing for the deeper sentiment of a pure affection which shall be all his own; while others totally at variance with these are in a light jovial vein. The following presents an epistle of this type:
"_Bonjour_, my aunt; I embrace you, my amiable Pauline; your servitor, my charming Perrette. My little children, love one another; this is the precept of the apostle word for word. May the evil that one of you wishes another fall back upon his own head; this is the malediction of the prophet. This part of my discourse is not made for tender, feeling souls like yours, I know it, and I never think without an extreme satisfaction how nature, which has made you so amiable, has given you such a portion of sensibility, of equity, and of moderation which permits you to live so happily together and me to be in the midst of so charming a society. This one will love me as a son, that one as a friend and my Pauline, uniting all these sentiments in her good little heart, will inundate me with a deluge of affection, to which I will reply following the power given by Providence to your zealous servitor, your sincere friend, your future.... _Peste!_ what a serious word I was going to pronounce! It would have passed the limits of the profound respect with which I have the honor to be, Mademoiselle, etc., etc."