Paris ー Friday 24 May 1776
I have arrived, very tired, very harassed. 2 My first care is to ask your orders, and at what hour you will be good enough to give me an audience It is three o'clock in the morning. My black servant will be at Versailles at your hour of rising He will be back in time for mine, and I hope that he will bring me the news which I await with the greatest impatience; that is, permission to come and assure you of the very respectful devotion with which I am, Monsieur le Comte [&c.] Beaumarchais I sign, for I am so tired that perhaps you will not recognize my writing.
1. Stevens, ed., Facsimiles, No. 871.
2. Beaumarchais had been in London discussing the arrangements with Arthur Lee for secret assistance to America through the grant of one million livres from the French Court. Out of these conferences came the still unanswered question. Was it a gift or was reimbursement expected? See Samuel Flagg Bemis, The Diplomacy of the American Revolution (New York, 1935), 35.