The Project Gutenberg ebook of Beaumarchais and the War of American Independence Vol. I, by Elizabeth S. Kite.

It was then to this parliament and Maupeou that the Comte de la Blache made his appeal. The institution was the more to his liking, since at its head presided a certain counsellor by the name of Goëzman who seemed especially made for his purpose.

We shall have much to say of this same Goëzman in a succeeding chapter when it comes to the question of the famous lawsuit concerning the fifteen louis. At this time, however, Beaumarchais’s case was very strong and none of his friends seriously supposed that the count would be able to turn the suit against him.

It was at this crisis that a circumstance, one of the most bizarre of all the strange happenings in the life of Beaumarchais, suddenly placed him at the mercy of his bitterest enemy.

For a minutely detailed account of this incident we have Beaumarchais’s own account as rendered to the lieutenant of police after the matter had been taken up by the authorities. While Gudin on his side, who, as we shall see, had his own part to play in this singular drama, gives a no less circumstantial account of the whole proceeding.

When in 1855, M. de Loménie published his important work, the incident about to be related was wholly unknown to the public although as he tells us, “The author of the Barbier de Séville had collected with care all the documents relating to this strange affair. Upon the back of the bundle of papers was written with his own hand, ‘Material for the memoirs of my life.’”

As M. de Sartine, at that time lieutenant-general of police, later became a warm friend of Beaumarchais, the latter was able to obtain all the letters deposited by each one of the actors of this tragi-comique scene.

We can do no better than follow the account of M. de Loménie with occasional touches from Gudin.

CHAPTER VIII

Bartholo—“De la justice? C’est bon pour les autres misérables, la justice. Je suis maître, moi, pour avoir toujours raison.”

Beaumarchais and the Duc de Chaulnes—Attempt Upon the Life of Beaumarchais—Same Evening Gives the Promised Reading of the Barbier de Séville—Victim of a Lettre de Cachet.

IT will be remembered that Gudin in his history of Beaumarchais speaks of a meeting of literary men at the table of a certain Mademoiselle Ménard, femme d’esprit, where the subject of the comic opera lately composed by Beaumarchais was discussed. It was this same Mademoiselle Ménard who in the words of Loménie was “the cause of an Homeric combat between Beaumarchais, prudent and dexterous as Ulysses, and a duke and peer, robust and ferocious as Ajax.”

Mademoiselle Ménard was a young and pretty actress, who in June, 1770, had made her début with success at the Comédie Italienne. In his Correspondence littéraire, of June, 1770, Baron von Grimme, the great critic of the time, says of her after a rather cold analysis: “Mademoiselle Ménard must be given a trial; she seems capable of great application. It is said that her first occupation was that of a flower girl on the boulevards, but wishing to withdraw from that estate which has degenerated a little from the first nobility of its origin, since Glysère sold bouquets at the doors of the temple of Athens, she bought a grammar and applied herself to a study of the language and its pronunciation, after which she tried playing comedies. During her first attempts, she has addressed herself to all the authors, musicians, and poets, asking their counsels with a zeal and docility which has had for recompense the applause which she has obtained in her different rôles. M. de Pequigny, to-day the duc de Chaulnes, protector of her charms, has had her portrait painted by Greuze; so if we do not retain her in the theater we shall at least see her at the next salon.”

Acting on the wishes of her protector, Mademoiselle Ménard had renounced the theater and was in the habit of receiving at her house poets, musicians, and great lords, Beaumarchais among the rest.

“The duc de Chaulnes,” says Loménie, “was a man notorious for the violence and extravagance of his character. The history of Beaumarchais by Gudin contains details about him in every way confirming the testimony of other contemporaries.”

“His character,” wrote Gudin, “was a peculiar mixture of contradictory qualities; esprit without judgment, pride, with such a lack of discernment as to rob him of dignity before superiors, equals or inferiors, a vast but disorderly memory, a great desire to improve himself, a still greater taste for dissipation, a prodigious strength of body, a violence of disposition which rendered him extremely unreasonable and robbed him of the power to think clearly, frequent fits of rage which made of him a savage beast incapable of being controlled.

“At one time banished from his country for five years, he spent the time of his exile in making a scientific expedition. He visited the pyramids, lived with the Bedouins and brought home many objects of natural history.”

To this portrait by Gudin, Loménie adds the following: “In the midst of his disorderly and extravagant life, he had conserved something of the taste of his father, a distinguished mechanician, physicist, and natural historian who died an honorary member of the Academy of Natural Sciences. The son loved chemistry passionately and made several discoveries. Nevertheless even here he displayed many eccentricities. Thus, to verify the efficacy of a preparation he had invented against asphyxiation, he shut himself up in a glass cabinet and asphyxiated himself, leaving to his valet de chambre the care to come to his aid at the proper moment to try his remedy. Happily his servant was punctual and no harm was done.

“The peculiar character of the duke rendered his liaison with Mademoiselle Ménard very stormy. At the same time brutal, jealous, and unfaithful, he inspired in her little sentiment other than fear. Suddenly becoming infatuated with Beaumarchais, he introduced him to the young woman in question.”

Gudin says, “One of the greatest wrongs that I have known in Beaumarchais was to appear so amiable to women that he was always preferred, which made him as many enemies as there were aspirants to please him.”

The duc de Chaulnes, perceiving very soon that Mademoiselle Ménard found Beaumarchais very agreeable, his friendship turned to fury.

“Frightened by his violence,” says Loménie, “she begged Beaumarchais to cease his visits. Out of regard for her, he consented, but the bad treatment of the duke continuing, she decided to take the desperate step of shutting herself up in a convent. When she believed that the danger was over and that she would be safe in her own home, she returned and invited her friends, Beaumarchais among them, to come to see her.”

The duke during his intimacy with Beaumarchais had received many favors from him, notably important sums of money which, of course, he never repaid. It was at the moment of the return of Mademoiselle Ménard to her home that Beaumarchais wrote the following letter to the duke.

“Mademoiselle Ménard has notified me that she has returned to her home and has invited me to come to see her along with all her other friends, when I can make it convenient. I judge that the reasons which forced her to the retreat now have ceased. She tells me she is free and I congratulate both of you sincerely. I expect to see her sometime to-morrow. The force of circumstances has then done for you what my representations were unable to accomplish. I have known by what pecuniary efforts you have tried again to bring her to be your dependent, and with what nobility she has refused your money.

“Pardon me if I make certain reflections, they are not foreign to the end which I have in view in writing this. In speaking to you of Mademoiselle Ménard I forget my personal injuries. I forget that after making it clear to you that my attachment for you alone inspired the sacrifices which I made, and that after having said to me very disadvantageous things about her, you have changed and said things a hundred times worse to her about me. I pass also in silence the scene, horrible for her—and disgusting to me, where you so far forgot yourself as to reproach me with being the son of a watchmaker. I, who honor myself in my parents in the face of those even, who imagine they have the right to outrage their own. You must feel, Monsieur le duc, how much more advantageous my position is at this moment than your own, and except for the anger which makes you unreasonable, you would certainly appreciate the moderation with which I repelled the outrage against him whom I have always made profession of loving and honoring with all my heart. But if my respectful regards for you have not gone so far as to make me fear you, then it is because it is not in my power to fear any man. Believe me, Monsieur le duc, I have never tried to diminish the attachment of this generous woman for you. She would have despised me if I had attempted to do so. You have had, therefore, no enemy but yourself. Recall all that I have had the honor to say in regard to this subject and give back your friendship to him whom you have not been able to deprive of his esteem for you. If this letter does not appeal to you, I shall feel that I have done my duty to the friend whom I have never offended, whose injuries I have forgotten, and to whom I come now for the last time....”

The duke did not reply to this letter and matters remained at a standstill until one morning the infatuated duke took it into his head to kill Beaumarchais.

“Fatality,” says Gudin, “was the cause that I who never left my study in the morning unless it was to go and turn over the pages of the books or ancient manuscripts in the Bibliotèque du Roi, had gone out that morning by request of my mother, it being the 11th of February, 1773. My commission for her finished and finding myself near the lodging of Mademoiselle Ménard whom I had not seen for a long time, I mounted to her apartments.

“‘It is a great while since I have seen you,’ she said, ‘I feared you no longer had any friendship for me.’ I assured her of my regard and seated myself in an armchair. Soon she burst into tears as if her heart could not contain its grief, and began to recount the violences of the duke and spoke of a very insulting remark which he had made about Beaumarchais. At that moment the duke entered the room, I rose and gave him my place.

“‘I weep,’ she said, ‘and I beg M. Gudin to induce Beaumarchais to justify himself for the ridiculous accusation you have made against him.’

“‘What need is there for a scoundrel like Beaumarchais to justify himself?’

“‘You love him,’ cried the duke. ‘You humiliate me. I declare to you that I will kill him!’

“The duke sprang up and rushed from the room. We all rose and cried out. I ran to prevent his escape, but he evaded me. I turned back into the room, I cried to the women that I would warn Beaumarchais and prevent the combat.

“I was beside myself, I left and ran to his house. I met his carriage in the Rue Dauphine. I threw myself in front of the horses, stopped them, mounted on the steps of his carrosse, and told him that the duc de Chaulnes was hunting for him and wished to kill him.

“‘I cannot,’ he answered, ‘the hour calls me to the tribunal of the varenne du Louvre, where I must preside, I will come to you as soon as the audience is finished.’

“His carriage started and I went back home. Just as I was mounting the steps of the Pont-Neuf I felt myself violently pulled by the skirts of my coat, I fell backward and found myself in the arms of the duc de Chaulnes who, using his gigantic strength, picked me up like a bird, threw me into a fiàcre, cried to the coachman, ‘Rue de Condé,’ and said to me with horrible oaths that I should find for him the man he sought to kill.

“‘By what right,’ I said, ‘Monsieur le duc, you who are always crying for liberty, do you take mine from me?’

“‘By the right of the strongest. You will find for me—Beaumarchais or—’

“‘Monsieur le duc, I have no arms, you will perhaps wish also to assassinate me?’

“‘I do not know where he is and if I did, I would not tell you while you are in the fury of your present rage.’

“‘What, you would strike a duke!’ With that he threw himself upon me and tried to seize my hair. As I wore a wig it remained in his hand, which made the scene very amusing as I perceived from the laughter of the populace outside the fiàcre, all the doors of which were open. The duke who saw nothing, seized me by the neck and wounded me on my throat, my ear, and my cheek. I stopped his blows as best I could and called the guard with all my might. The duke grew calmer and we arrived at the home of Beaumarchais.

“The duke jumped from the carriage and pounded on the door. I sprang from the other side of the carriage and knowing that my friend would not be found, I escaped to my own home by the side streets, there to await the coming of Beaumarchais.

“I waited in impatience,—he did not come, I grew uneasy, fear seized me, I gave orders that he should await me, I ran to his home. Here is what happened and which is to be found in his petition to the marshals of France.”

“Exact recital of what passed Thursday, the 11th of February, 1773, between M. le duc de Chaulnes and myself, Beaumarchais.

“I had opened the audience of the capitainerie, when I saw M. le duc de Chaulnes arrive with the most bewildered air that could be imagined and he said aloud that he had something very pressing to communicate to me and that I must come out at once. ‘I cannot, Monsieur le duc, the service of the public forces me to terminate decently what I have begun.’ I had a seat brought for him; he insisted; everyone was astonished at his air and tone. I began to fear that his object would be suspected and I suspended the audience for a moment and passed with him into a cabinet. There he told me with all the force of the language des halles, that he wished to kill me at once and to drink my blood, for which he was thirsty.

“‘Oh, is it only that, Monsieur le duc? Permit then, that business go before pleasure.’ I wished to return; he stopped me, saying that he would tear out my eyes before all the world if I did not instantly go out with him.

“‘You will be lost, Monsieur, if you are rash enough to attack me publicly.’

“Surrounded as I was by the officers and guards of the capitainerie, after seating le duc de Chaulnes, I opposed during the two hours of the audience, a perfect sang-froid to the petulant and insane perturbation with which he walked about troubling the audience and asking of all, ‘Will this last much longer?’

“Finally the audience was over and I put on my street costume. In descending, I asked M. de Chaulnes, what could be his grievance against a man whom he had not seen for six months.

“‘No explanation,’ he said to me, ‘let us go instantly and fight it out.’

“‘At least,’ I said, ‘you will permit me to go home and get a sword? I have only a mourning sword with me in the carriage.’

“‘We are passing the house of M. le Comte de Turpin, who will lend you one and who will serve as witness.’

“He sprang into my carriage. I got in after him, while his equipage followed ours. He did me the honor of assuring me that this time I would not escape him, ornamenting his sentences with those superb imprecations which are so familiar in his speech. The coolness of my replies augmented his rage.

“We arrived as M. de Turpin was leaving his home. He mounted on the box of my carriage.

“‘M. le duc,’ I said, ‘is carrying me off. I do not know why he wants us to cut one another’s throats, but in this strange adventure he hopes that you will wish to serve as witness of our conduct.’

“M. de Turpin replied that a pressing matter forced him to go at once to the Luxembourg and would detain him there until four o’clock in the afternoon. I perceived that M. de Turpin had for his object to allow time for the rage of Monsieur le duc to calm itself. He left us. M. de Chaulnes wished to take me to his home. ‘No, thank you,’ I replied, and ordered my coachman to drive to mine.

“‘You will have the pleasure then, because it is exactly where I am going.’ Then I asked him to dine with me.

“The carriage arrived at my door, I descended, and he followed me. I gave my orders coldly, the postman handed me a letter, the duke seized it from me before my father and all the domestics. I tried to turn the matter into a joke, but the duke began to swear. My father became alarmed, I reassured him and ordered dinner to be served in my study.”

At this point we return to the account by Gudin which is much less detailed than Beaumarchais’s recital.

“The duke followed him, and on entering the study though wearing a sword of his own, he seized one of Beaumarchais’s which was lying on the table and attempted to stab him, but found himself seized and enveloped before he had time completely to draw the sword from its case. The men struggled together like two athletes, Beaumarchais less strong, but more master of himself, pushed the duke toward the chimney and seized the bell cord. The domestics came running in and seeing their master assailed, his hair torn and his face bleeding, they attacked the duke. The cook arming himself with a stick of wood was ready to break the skull of the madman. Beaumarchais forbade them to strike, but ordered that they take away the sword which the duke held in his hands. They so far disarmed him but did not dare to take the sword which he still wore at his side. In the struggle, they had pushed and pulled each other from the study to the steps, here the duke fell and dragged Beaumarchais with him. At this moment I knocked at the street door. The duke immediately disengaged himself and threw open the door. My surprise can be imagined.

“‘Enter,’ cried the duke, seizing me, ‘here is another who will not go out of here,’ his mania seemed to be that no one should leave the house until he had killed Beaumarchais.

“I joined my friend and tried to make him enter the study with me; the duke opposed himself to us with violence and drew his own sword. Beaumarchais seized him by the throat and pressed him so closely that he could not strike. Eight of us came instantly to his aid and disarmed the duke. A lackey had his head cut, the coachman his nose injured and the cook was wounded in the hand. We pushed the duke into the dining-room which was very near the street door and Beaumarchais went up stairs.

“As soon as the duke ceased to see his enemy he sat down by himself at the table and ate with a furious appetite.”

Here Beaumarchais shall continue with the account: “The duke again heard a knocking at the door and rushed to open it. He found M. the commissioner Chenu, who, surprised at the disorder in which he found the establishment, and at my appearance as I descended to greet him, inquired the cause of the confusion. I told him in a few words.... At my explanation the duke threw himself once more upon me striking me with his fists, unarmed I defended myself as best I could before the assembly who soon separated us. M. Chenu begged me to remain in the salon while he took charge of the duke, who had begun to break glass and tear his own hair in rage at not having killed me. M. Chenu at last persuaded him to go home and he had the impertinence to have my lackey whom he had wounded, dress his hair. I went to my room to have myself attended to and the duke throwing himself into my carriage rode away.

“I have stated these facts simply, without indulging in any comments, employing as far as possible the expressions used, and endeavoring to state the exact truth in recounting one of the strangest and most disgusting adventures which could come to a reasonable man.”

“Anyone else, after an equally violent scene, would have been overwhelmed with anxiety and fatigue, would have sought repose, and would have been anxious in regard to precautions against the repeated violence of a great lord, but Beaumarchais, as cheerful and assured as if he had passed the most tranquil day, was not willing to deny himself a moment of pleasure. That very evening, at the risk of encountering the duke, he went to the home of one of his old friends, M. Lopes, where he was expected to give a reading of his Barbier de Séville.

“Upon his arrival he recounted to them the adventures of the day. Everyone supposed that after such an exciting experience, there would be no feeling on his part for comedy. But Beaumarchais assured the ladies that the scandalous conduct of a madman should not spoil their evening’s pleasure and he read his play with as much composure as if nothing had happened. He was as calm, as gay, and as brilliant during supper as usual, and passed a part of the night playing on the harp and singing the Spanish seguedillas or the charming scenes he had set to music which he accompanied with so much grace upon the instrument which he had perfected.

“It was thus that in every circumstance of his life he gave himself entirely to the thing which occupied him without any thought of what had passed or was to follow, so sure was he of all his faculties and his presence of mind. He never needed preparation upon any point, his intelligence was always ready, and his principles of action faultless.”

As might be expected, the scandalous adventure made a great deal of noise. It was taken up by the marshals of France, judges in such cases between gentlemen, and a guard was sent to the home of each one of the adversaries. Loménie says, “In the interval the duke de la Vrillière, minister of the house of the king, ordered Beaumarchais to go into the country for some days, and as the latter protested energetically against such an order the execution of which, under the circumstances, would have compromised his honor, the minister had directed him to stay at his home until the matter had been taken before the king.

“The marshals then successively called each combatant in turn to appear before them. Beaumarchais had no trouble in proving that his only wrong consisted in being permitted the friendship of a pretty woman, and the result of the investigation having been unfavorable to the duc de Chaulnes, he was sent on the 19th of February by a lettre de cachet to the château of Vincennes. The Marshals of France then sent for Beaumarchais a second time and declared him free.

“All this was just, but Beaumarchais, not over confident in human justice, went to the duke de la Vrillière to assure himself that he was free. Not finding the nobleman at home he addressed a note to Sartine, lieutenant-général of police, to ask the same question. This latter replied that he was perfectly at liberty, then for the first time Beaumarchais ventured to stir abroad. But he counted even then prematurely on the justice of the court. The very small mind of the duc de la Vrillière was offended that the tribunal of the marshals of France should discharge arrests given by him and so to teach the tribunal a lesson and to show his authority, on the 24th of February he sent Beaumarchais to For-l’Evêque.”

As may be imagined, this was a terrible blow to a man of his active temperament and especially at this time when his enemy the Comte de la Blache was capable of using the advantage thus acquired to complete his ruin. Nevertheless his first letter from prison shows his usual serenity of mind. He wrote to Gudin: “In virtue of a lettre sans cachet called lettre de cachet signed Louis and below Philippeaux, recommended—Sartine, executed—Buchot, and submitted Beaumarchais, I am lodged, my friend, since this morning at For-l’Evêque, in an unfurnished room at 2160 livres rent where I am led to hope that, except what is necessary I shall lack nothing. Is it the family of the duke whom I have saved a criminal suit who have imprisoned me? Is it the ministry whose orders I have constantly followed or anticipated? Is it the dukes and peers of the realm with whom I am in no way connected? This is what I do not know, but the sacred name of ‘King’ is so beautiful a thing that one cannot multiply it or employ it too frequently àpropos. It is thus that in every country which is governed by police they torment by authority those whom they cannot inculpate with justice. Wherever mankind is to be found, odious things happen and the great wrong of being in the right is always a crime in the eyes of power, which wishes to punish unceasingly, but never to judge.”

The two rivals were thus very securely lodged for the present and Mademoiselle Ménard, the unwilling pretext of all the trouble, was quite safe from her tormentor. Before the rendering of the sentence, however, which confined the duc de Chaulnes to the prison of Vincennes, in the fear which the violence of his character inspired, this “beautiful Helen,” says Loménie, “went and threw herself at the feet of M. de Sartine, imploring his protection.” The next day she wrote a letter communicating her fixed resolve to retire to a convent. Other letters follow and four days after the terrible scene which has been described, Mademoiselle Ménard entered the couvent des Cordelières, faubourg Saint-Marceau, Paris.

M. de Sartine had entrusted the very delicate, not to say hazardous mission of seeing the young woman in question safely lodged in a convent, to a worthy priest, l’abbé Dugué. This very respectable, very good and very naïf abbé, wrote the same evening a lengthy letter to the lieutenant-general of police in which he showed himself very anxious not to compromise his own dignity as well as not to incur the enmity of a great duke still at liberty, whose character was universally known.

After explaining the difficulties he had encountered, and his just uneasiness in finding himself entangled in what to him was a very embarrassing affair, he humbly begged that the duke be prevented from disturbing the young woman, the circumstances of whose history he has been forced to hide from the good sisters of the Cordelières. If the interference of the duke could be prevented, he hoped that the repose, joined to the sweetness of the appearance and character of this “affligée recluse” would work in her favor in this home of order and prevent his passing for a liar, or even worse, as though being in fault for irregular conduct.

“I left the ladies,” he continues, “well disposed for their new pensionaire, but I repeat, what disgrace for me, if jealousy or love, equally out of place, find her out and penetrate even to her parlor there to exhale their scandalous or their unedifying sighs.”

The good abbé’s fears in regard to the young woman were, however, groundless, for as we have seen, by the 19th of February the duc de Chaulnes was safe in the fortress of Vincennes.

Loménie continues: “This affligée recluse, as the good abbé Dugué said, was not at all made for the life of a convent, she had scarcely enjoyed the existence within its protecting walls a fortnight before she felt the need to vary her impressions, and she abruptly returned to the world, tranquilized by the knowledge of the solidity of the walls of the château de Vincennes which separated her from the duc de Chaulnes.”

Beaumarchais, inactive at For-l’Evêque, having heard of Mademoiselle Ménard’s return to the world wrote her a most characteristic letter full of brotherly advice in which is shown his tendency to regulate the affairs of those in whom he feels an interest, as well as a certain chagrin perhaps, that the young woman in question should enjoy her liberty when he, Beaumarchais, is forced to remain inactive at For-l’Evêque.

He wrote: “It is not proper that anyone should attempt to curtail the liberty of others, but the counsels of friendship ought to have some weight because of their disinterestedness. I learn that you, Mademoiselle, have left the convent as suddenly as you entered it. What can be your motives for an action which seems imprudent? Are you afraid that some abuse of authority will force you to remain there? Reflect, I beg you, and see if you are more sheltered in your own home, should some powerful enemy think himself strong enough to keep you there? In the painful condition of your affairs having no doubt exhausted your purse by paying your pension quarter in advance, and furnishing an apartment in the convent, ought you to triple your expense without necessity? The voluntary retreat where sorrow and fear conducted you, is it not a hundred times more suited to you than those lodgings from which your feelings should wish to separate you by great distance? They tell me that you weep. Why do you do so? Are you the cause of the misfortunes of M. de Chaulnes or of mine? You are only the pretext, and if in this execrable adventure anyone can be thankful, it ought to be you who have no cause to reproach yourself and who have recovered your liberty from one of the most unjust tyrants and madmen who ever took upon themselves the right of invading your presence.

“I must also take into account what you owe the good and worthy abbé Dugué, who to serve you, has been obliged to dissimulate your name and your trouble in the convent, where you were sheltered on his word. Your leaving, which seems like a freak, does it not compromise him with the superiors of the convent, in giving him the appearance of being connected with a black intrigue, he who put so much zeal and compassion into what he did for you? You are honest and good, but so many violent emotions may have thrown your judgment into some confusion. You need a wise counsellor who will make it his duty to show you your situation just as it is, not happy, but bearable.

“Believe me, my dear friend, return to the convent where I am told you have made yourself loved. While you are there, discontinue the useless establishment which you keep up against all reason. The project which it is supposed that you have of returning to the stage is absurd. You should think of nothing but tranquilizing your mind and regaining your health. In a word, whatever your plans for the future, they cannot and ought not to be indifferent to me. I should be informed, for I dare say that I am the only man whose help you should accept without blushing. In remaining in the convent it will be proved that there is no intimate connection between us, and I shall have the right to declare myself your friend, your protector, your brother, and your counselor.

But all these remonstrances were in vain. Mademoiselle Ménard persisted in remaining in the world. Beaumarchais resigned himself as she became very useful in soliciting his release. Her name, however, very soon disappears from the papers of Beaumarchais. His own affairs take on so black an aspect that he had little time to busy himself with those of others. As for the duc de Chaulnes before leaving prison he addressed a humble letter to M. de Sartine in which he promised never again to torment Mademoiselle Ménard nor to interfere with Beaumarchais, asking only that the latter keep himself at a distance.

Thus ends the famous quarrel whose consequence had so profound an effect upon the career of Beaumarchais as we shall see in the next chapter.

CHAPTER IX

“La Jeunesse—Mais quand une chose est vraie.... Bartholo—Quand une chose est vraie! si je ne veux pas qu’elle soit vraie, je prétends qu’elle ne soit pas vraie. Il n’y aurait qu’a permettre à tous ces faquins-là d’avoir raison, vous verrez bientôt ce que deviendrait l’autorité.”

Beaumarchais at For-l’Evêque—Letter to his Little Friend—Second Trial in the Suit Instituted Against Him by the Count de la Blache—Efforts to Secure an Audience with the Reporter Goëzman—Second Judgment Rendered Against Beaumarchais—He Obtains his Liberty—Loudly Demands the Return of his Fifteen Louis.

ALTHOUGH Beaumarchais’s first letter from For-l’Evêque sounded philosophical, his situation was cruel in the extreme. Loménie says: “This imprisonment which fell in the midst of his suit against the Comte de la Blache did him frightful harm; his adversary profiting by the circumstance, worked without relaxation to blacken his character before the judges, multiplying his measures, his recommendations, his solicitations; and ardently pressing the decision of his suit, while the unhappy prisoner whose fortune and honor were engaged in this affair, could not even obtain permission to go out for a few hours to visit the judges in his turn.

“M. de Sartine showed him the greatest good-will but he was unable to do more than mitigate his situation, his liberty depending on the minister.

“Beaumarchais had begun by pleading his cause before the Duke de la Vrillière, as a citizen unjustly imprisoned. He sent him memoir after memoir proving ably that he had done no wrong; he demanded to know why he had been detained, and when M. de Sartine warned him in a friendly way that this tone would lead to nothing, he replied with dignity, ‘The only satisfaction of a persecuted man is to render testimony that he is unjustly dealt with.’”

While he was consuming himself in vain protestations, the day for the judgment of his suit approached. To the demands of M. de Sartine soliciting permission for Beaumarchais to go out for a few hours each day the duc de la Vrillière replied always, “That man is too insolent, let him follow his affair through his attorney!” and Beaumarchais, indignant and heart-broken, wrote to M. de Sartine:

“It is completely proved to me that they desire that I shall lose my suit, if it is possible for me to lose it, but I admit that I was not prepared for the derisive answer of the duc de la Vrillière to solicit my affair through my attorney, he who knows as well as I, that it is forbidden to attorneys. Ah, great heavens! cannot an innocent man be lost without laughing in his face! Thus, Monsieur, have I been grievously insulted, justice has been denied me because my adversary is a man of quality, I have been put in prison, I am kept there, because I have been insulted by a man of quality. They even go so far as to blame me for enlightening the police as to the false impressions they have received, while the immodest gazettes Les Deux-Ponto and Hollande unworthily dishonor me to please my adversary. A little more and they would say that it was very insolent in me to have been outraged in every way by a man of quality, because what is the meaning of that phrase, ‘He has put too much boasting into this affair?’ Could I do less than demand justice and prove by the conduct of my adversary that I was in no way wrong? What a pretext for ruining an offended man, that of saying, ‘He has talked too much about his affair.’ As if it were possible to talk of anything else! Receive my sincere thanks, Monsieur, for having notified me of this refusal and this observation of M. the duc de la Vrillière, and for the happiness of the country may your power one day equal your sagacity and your integrity! My gratitude equals the profound respect with which I am, etc.,

But the correspondence of Beaumarchais with M. de Sartine did not advance matters in the least. What M. the duc de la Vrillière exacted before everything else was that he cease to be insolent, that is to demand justice, and that he ask for pardon.

Beaumarchais resisted this for about a month, when on the 20th of March he received a letter without signature, written by a man who seemed to interest himself in the situation and who endeavored to make Beaumarchais understand that under an absolute government, when anyone has incurred disgrace at the hands of a minister, and that minister keeps one in prison when one has the greatest possible interest to be free, it is not the thing to do to plead one’s cause as an oppressed citizen but to bow to the law of force and speak like a suppliant.

What would Beaumarchais do? He was on the brink of losing a suit most important for his fortune and his honor, his liberty was in the hands of a man unworthy of esteem, because the duc de la Vrillière was one of the ministers the most justly disdained by history, but the situation was such that this man disposed at will of his destiny. Beaumarchais resigned himself at last, humiliated himself. See him in the part of suppliant.

“The frightful affair of M. the duc de Chaulnes has become for me a succession of misfortunes without end, and the greatest of all is that I have incurred your displeasure in spite of the purity of my intentions. Despair has broken me and driven me to measures which have displeased you, I disavow them Monseigneur, at your feet, and beg of you a generous pardon, or if it seems to you that I merit a longer imprisonment, permit me to go during a few days to instruct my judges in the most important affair for my fortune and my honor, and I submit after the judgment to whatever pain you may impose. All my family weeping join their prayers to mine. Everyone speaks, Monseigneur, of your indulgence and goodness of heart. Shall I be the only one who implores you in vain. You can with a single word fill with joy a host of honest people whose gratitude will equal the very profound respect with which we are all, and I in particular, Monseigneur, your, etc.,

The duc de la Vrillière was satisfied in his petty vanity, so a reply was soon forthcoming. The next day, March 22nd, the minister sent to M. de Sartine the authorization to allow the prisoner to go out during the day, under the conduct of an agent of police, but obliging him to eat and sleep at For-l’Evêque.

In the meantime, however, another disgrace was threatening him. Some enemy had taken advantage of his absence to attack his rights as lieutenant-général des chasses. “From the depths of his prison,” wrote Loménie, “he reclaimed them immediately in a letter to the duc de La Vallière where he appeared proud and imposing as a baron of the middle ages.”

“Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, lieutenant-général at the court of justice of your capitainerie, has the honor of representing to you that his detention by order of the king has not destroyed his civil estate. He has been very much surprised to learn that in violation of the regulation of the capitainerie of May 17th which says that every officer who does not bring valid excuse for not being present at the reception of a new officer will be deprived of his droit de bougies, etc., etc. The exactitude and zeal with which the suppliant has always fulfilled the functions of his charge to the present day makes him hope, Monsieur le duc, that you will be so good as to maintain him in all the rights of the said charge against every kind of enterprise or infringement. When M. de Schomberg was in the Bastille the king permitted him to do his work for les Suisses which he had the honor to command. The same thing happened to the M. the duc du Maine.

“The suppliant is perhaps the least worthy of the officers of your capitainerie but he has the honor of being its lieutenant-général and you will certainly not disapprove, Monsieur le duc, that he prevents the first office of that capitainerie to grow less under his hands or that any other officer takes upon himself the functions to its prejudice.

In striking contrast to this picture of Beaumarchais defending so proudly his rights before a great noble, is another, also drawn by his own hand, in a letter to a child of six years in which all the warmth and goodness of his heart, as well as the delicacy of his sentiments, manifest themselves.

We already have mentioned the fact that as secretary to the king, Beaumarchais was the colleague of M. Lenormant d’Étioles, the husband of Madame de Pompadour. After the death of his first wife in 1764, he had married a second time and he now had a charming little son, six and a half years old. Beaumarchais, intimate with the family, completely had won the heart of this little boy whose pretty ways were a constant reminder of the child he had lost. Learning that his friend was in prison, the child spontaneously wrote the following letter:

“I send you my purse, because in prison one is always unhappy. I am very sorry that you are in prison. Every morning and every evening I say an Ave Maria for you. I have the honor to be, Monsieur, your very humble and very obedient servitor

“My good little friend Constant, I have received with much gratitude your letter and the purse which you joined to it. I have made a just division of what it contained among the prisoners, my companions, according to their different needs, while I have kept for your friend Beaumarchais the best part, I mean the prayers, the Ave Marias, of which I certainly have need, and so have distributed to the poor people who suffer imprisonment all that the purse contained. Thus intending to oblige only a single man you have acquired the gratitude of many. This is the ordinary fruit of such good actions as yours.

And to the child’s mother he wrote at the same time: “I thank you very sincerely, Madame, for having sent me the letter and the purse of my little friend Constant. These are the first outbursts of the sensibility of a young soul which promise excellent things. Do not give him back his purse, in order that he may not think that such sacrifices bring a similar recompense, but later you may give it to him that he may have a reminder of the tenderness of his generous heart. Recompense him now in a way that will give him a just idea of his action without allowing him to pride himself upon it. But what am I thinking of to join my observations to the pains that have caused to germinate and to develop so great a quality as benevolence at an age when the only morality is to report everything to oneself. Receive my thanks and my compliments. Permit that M. l’abbé Leroux participate in them. He has not satisfied himself with teaching his pupils to decline the word virtue, he inculcates the love of it. He is a man full of merit and more fitted than anyone to second your views. This letter and the purse have caused me the joy of a child. Happy parents! You have a son capable at the age of six of this action. And I also had a son, I have him no more, and yours gives you already such happiness. I partake in it with all my heart, and I beg you to continue to love him a little who is the cause of this charming outburst of our little Constant. One cannot add anything to the respectful attachment of him who honors himself, Madame, etc.

“And this,” says Loménie, “is the man whom the Comte de la Blache charitably calls a finished monster, a venomous species of which society should be purged, and at the moment when the count says this, it is the opinion almost universally adopted. It is in vain that Beaumarchais follows his guard and returns every evening to his prison, passing his day in hastening from one to another of his judges, the discredit attached to his name followed him everywhere.

“Under the influence of this discredit, and upon the report of the Counsellor Goëzman, the parliament decided at last between him and M. de la Blache, and gave, April 5th, 1773, a strange judgment from a legal point of view. This judgment, declared nul and of no effect the act made between the two majors, saying that there was no need of lettres de récision, that is to say, that the question of fraud, surprise or error being set aside, Beaumarchais found himself indirectly declared a forger although there was against him no inscription of forgery.”

In the words of Bonnefon, “Precisely the counsellor designated as rapporteur in the affair of Beaumarchais by la Blache was one of the least scrupulous members of that strange parliament. A learned legist, he had begun his career as judge of the superior council of Alsace, and the chancellor Maupeou, in quest of magistrates who could be bought, had raised him to his new functions.

“Valentine Goëzman was not overly scrupulous in regard to the means of conviction employed and if he kept his doors well closed to all litigants it was only to make them open all the wider by the money of those who solicited his audiences.

“Needy himself he had married a second wife, young and coquettish, even less delicate than her husband as to the choice of means. ‘It would be impossible,’ she was heard to say, ‘it would be impossible for us to live from what is given us, but we know how to pick the chicken without making it cry out.’”

It was a certain publisher, who according to Loménie, “hearing that Beaumarchais was in despair at not being able to find access to his reporter, sent him word that the only means of obtaining the audience and assuring the equity of the judge was to make a present to his wife, who demanded two hundred louis.”

But of this strange proceeding, let us allow the victim to step forward and speak for himself. In the exposition made in the first of those famous memoirs of which we shall soon speak, Beaumarchais wrote: “A few days before the one appointed for the judgment of my suit, I had obtained from the minister permission to solicit my judges under the express and rigorous conditions of going accompanied by a guard, the sieur Santerre, named for this purpose, and of going only to the judges, returning to the prison for all my meals and to sleep, which exceedingly embarrassed my movements and shortened the time accorded for my solicitations.

“In this short interval I presented myself at least ten times at the office of Monsieur Goëzman without being able to see him. I was not very much affected by this. M. Goëzman was of the number of my judges but there was no pressing interest between us. On the first of April however when he was charged with the office of reporter of my suit he became essential to me.

“Three times that afternoon I presented myself at his door always with the written formula, ‘Beaumarchais prays Monsieur to be so good as to accord him the favor of an audience, and to leave orders with the door keeper setting the hour and day.’ It was in vain. The next morning I was told that Monsieur Goëzman would see no one, and that it was useless to present myself again. I returned in the afternoon; the same reply.

“If one reflects that of the four days which were left me before the decision, one and a half had already been spent in vain solicitations and that twice a friend of Monsieur Goëzman had been to him and vainly pleaded for an audience for me, one can conceive of my disquietude.

“Not knowing what to do, on returning I entered the home of one of my sisters to take council and to calm my mind. It was then that the sieur Dairolles, lodging at my sister’s, spoke of a certain publisher, Le-Jay, who perhaps might procure for me the audience which I desired. He saw the man and was assured that by means of a sacrifice of money an audience would be promptly given.”

At this point let us break the narrative of Beaumarchais while we listen for a moment to Gudin. “I was with him when he was told that if he wished to give money to the wife of the reporter he could obtain the audiences he desired, and that this was only too necessary in our miserable manner of gaining justice. I remember very well the anger which seized him at this proposition and the pride with which he rejected it.

“But his friends and family as well as myself, alarmed at what his enemies were doing to ruin him, united our solicitations and tore from him rather than obtained his consent.”

And Beaumarchais, after giving in great detail the above scene, continues, “To cut the matter short, one of the friends present ran home and brought two rolls of fifty louis each, which I did not possess, and gave them to my sister, and these were finally delivered to Madame Goëzman while I returned to prison.”

The details which follow are too numerous to be given here. It is sufficient to say that though the reporter promised an audience for nine o’clock that same evening, Beaumarchais on arriving found that he was not expected. He was, however, this time not to be rejected and finally succeeded in forcing admittance. It was the moment when Madame and Monsieur Goëzman were preparing to seat themselves at table. A few moments’ conversation convinced Beaumarchais that the judge’s mind was made up and he returned to his prison, more alarmed than ever. His desire for a satisfactory audience was augmented rather than diminished. It was the fourth of April, the following day the final decision was to be given. Through the sieur Dairolles and Le-Jay Madame Goëzman demanded a second hundred louis and promised this time to secure the audience. Beaumarchais did not possess the money but offered a watch set with diamonds which was of equal value. She accepted the watch, but demanded fifteen louis extra as a gratification for her husband’s secretary. Beaumarchais, desperate, gave them, although as he told us, with a very bad grace. The audience was promised for seven o’clock.

Beaumarchais presented himself, but in vain. This time he was unable to force an entrance and returned without seeing the judge.

He continues: “The reader, tired at last of hearing so many vain promises, so many useless steps, will judge how beside myself I was to receive the one and to take the other. I went back to prison, rage in my heart. Now came a new course of intermediaries, this time the curious reply which was brought to me cannot be omitted. ‘It is not the fault of the lady if you have not been received. You may present yourself to-morrow. But she is so honest that if you cannot obtain an audience before the judgment she assures you that you shall receive again all that she has received of you.’

“I argued evil from this new announcement. Why did the lady engage herself to return the money? I had not asked for it. I made the most of the melancholy reflections on this subject. But although the tone and the proceeding seemed absolutely changed, I was none the less resolved to make a last effort to see my reporter the next morning; the only instant of which I could profit before the judgment.”

An interested friend had succeeded in penetrating to the presence of Goëzman the night before and the judge promised to see Beaumarchais the next morning. The latter says: “If ever an audience seemed sure, this one certainly did, promised on the one hand by the reporter while his wife received the price on the other. Nevertheless, in spite of the assurances of all, we were no happier than on former occasions.... Santerre and I remained for an hour and a half, but the orders were positive, we were not allowed to cross the threshold.

“But I had lost my suit, the evil was consummated. The same evening, sieur Dairolles returned to my sister the two rolls of fifty louis each and the watch. As for the fifteen louis, he said since they were required by the secretary of M. Goëzman, Madame Goëzman believed herself discharged from returning them.

“This conduct of the secretary was an enigma to me, I wished to fathom it. In the beginning he had modestly refused ten louis voluntarily offered him. I begged the friend who finally had induced the secretary to accept the ten louis to inquire if he had received the fifteen louis given to Madame Goëzman for him. He replied that they had never been offered to him and if they had been, he would not have accepted them....

“Stung by the dishonest means employed to retain the fifteen louis, believing even that the sieur Le-Jay whom I did not know at all perhaps had wished to keep them, I demanded of him through the sieur Dairolles what had become of them.

“He affirmed that Madame Goëzman had refused to give them back, and assured him that it had been arranged that in any case they were lost to me. He could not endure that it should be supposed that he had kept them, the lady herself was not to be seen, but I might write to her.

“The 21st of April, that is, seventeen days after the judgment, I wrote her the following letter.

“‘I have not the honor, Madame, of being personally known to you and I should be very far from importuning you, if after losing my suit, when you were good enough to return to me the two rolls of louis and my watch, you had at the same time returned the fifteen louis, which the common friend who negotiated between us left you in supererogation.

“‘I have been so horribly treated in the report of Monsieur, your husband, and my defence has been so trampled under foot before him that it is not just that to the immense loss which this report has cost me should be added that of fifteen louis which it is impossible should have strayed in your hands. If injustice must be paid for, it should not be paid by him who has so cruelly suffered.

“‘I hope you will be so good as to respect my demand, and that you will add to the justice of returning me these fifteen louis that of believing me, with the respectful consideration which is due to you

Bonnefon says: “To this demand the wife of the counsellor grew indignant and cried aloud. Beaumarchais was not to be intimidated and maintained his demand. It was then that the counsellor intervened and complained first to Monsieur the duc de la Vrillière and then to M. de Sartine; badly instructed perhaps and feeling sure of an easy triumph over an enemy already half-vanquished, he brought a suit for calumny before the parliament.

“Beaumarchais did not draw back. The counsellor accused him of attempt at corruption; his presence of mind did not desert him. He replied to everything with a vivacity and an apropos truly remarkable. Listen to him.

“... ‘It is time that I speak. Let me wash myself from the reproach of corruption by a calculation and some very simple reflections.

“‘It cost me a hundred louis to obtain an audience of M. Goëzman. Be so good as to follow the trace of that money and then judge, if from the distance where I remained from the reporter it was possible that I had formed the mad project of corrupting him.

“‘In ceding to the necessity of sacrificing one hundred louis which I (one person) did not possess; a friend (two persons) offered them to me, my sister (three) received them from his hands, she confided them to sieur Dairolles (four); who gave them to the sieur Le-Jay (five) to be given to Madame Goëzman (six) who kept them, and finally Monsieur Goëzman (seven), whom I could see only at that price and who knew nothing about the whole affair. See then from M. Goëzman to me a chain of seven persons of which he says I hold the first link as corruptor, while he holds the last as incorruptible. Very good. But if he is judged incorruptible how will he prove that I am corruptor?’ ...”

Monsieur Loménie, entering into more detail, says of Goëzman: “He must have been convinced that his wife had seriously compromised herself. Compromised himself through her, he had to choose between several different measures; all of them, in presence of a litigant discontented and fearless, offered great disadvantage for his reputation; the one which he adopted was incontestably the most daring, but also the most dishonorable.

“Starting from the idea that Beaumarchais had not the force to resist him, he imagined that in taking the initiative and attacking him while maneuvering in such a way that the truth might not be made known, he might be able to ruin him who had given the fifteen louis, and save her who had received them. It will be seen that the stratagem of Goëzman was baffled and his crime cruelly punished.”

But to return to the decision given by the parliament on the report of Goëzman April 5th. Loménie says: “At the same time that this decree dishonored Beaumarchais it was a rude blow to his fortune. The Parliament had not dared award to the Comte de la Blache as he had demanded, the passing of the act of settlement declared by it nul; the iniquity would have been too glaring; but it condemned his adversary to pay fifty-six thousand livres of debt annulled by the act of settlement, the interests of the debt and the costs of the suit.

“It was enough to crush him for at the same time the Comte de la Blache seized all his goods and revenues, other pretending creditors with equally false pretentions, united their persecutions with those of the Comte de la Blache, and the man thus attacked demanded in vain, with loud cries that the doors of his prison be opened.

“‘I am at the end of my courage,’ he wrote April 9, 1773, to M. de Sartine. ‘The opinion of the public is that I am entirely sacrificed, my credit has fallen, my business is ruined, my family of which I am the father and the support is in despair. Monsieur, I have done good all my life without ostentation and I have never ceased to be torn to pieces by those evilly disposed.

“‘If my home were known to you, you would see me in the midst of its members, a good son, a good brother, a good husband, and a useful citizen; I have assembled only benedictions about me, while my enemies calumniate me at a distance.

“‘Whatever vengeance one may wish to take of me for that miserable affair of Chaulnes, will it then have no limits? It is well proved that my imprisonment makes me lose a hundred thousand francs. The form, the ground, everything makes one shudder in that iniquitous sentence, and it is impossible for me to rise above it so long as I am kept in this horrible prison. I have courage to support my own misfortunes; but I have none against the tears of my respectable father, seventy-five years of age, who is grieving himself to death for the abject state to which I have fallen. I have none against the anguish of my sisters, of my nieces, who already feel the horror of my detention and know of the disorder which has come to my affairs because of it. All the activity of my being is again turned inward, my situation kills me, I am struggling against an acute malady of which I feel an agonizing premonition, through loss of sleep and disgust with food. The air of my prison destroys me.’

“It was in this state of deep depression and misery when the soul of Beaumarchais seemed overwhelmed and all his manhood slipping from him, that the petty detail of the fifteen louis came to stir his mind once more to action, and while his sisters wept and his father prayed, his proud and unconquerable spirit rose triumphant out of the abyss into which for a moment it had fallen, and with fresh courage gleaming in his eyes he began pacing the floor of his prison, already ‘meditating his memoirs.’

“The minister de la Vrillière allowed himself at last to be touched, and on the 8th of May, 1773, after two months and a half of detention without cause, he gave the prisoner his liberty.

“It is here that out of this lost process sprang suddenly another more terrible still, which should complete the ruin of Beaumarchais, but which saved him and made him pass in a few months from the state of abjection and of misery where to use his own expression, ‘He was an object of disgust and pity to himself, to a state where he is acclaimed the vanquisher of the hated parliament and the favorite of the nation.’”

“He was,” says Grimm, “the horror of Paris a year ago; everyone upon the word of his neighbor, believed him capable of the greatest crimes; all the world dotes on him to-day.” It remains for us now to explain how this change of opinion came about.