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

“Il n’y a pas de conte absurde qu’on ne fasse adopter aux oisifs d’une grande ville, on s’y prenant bien.”

Beaumarchais Goes to London in Quality of Secret Agent of Louis XV—Theveneau de Morande and His Gazetier Cuirassé—The King Dies—Beaumarchais’s Second Mission Under Louis XVI—Playing Figaro upon the Stage of Life—Visits the Empress of Austria—Is Imprisoned at Vienna—Addresses Memoir to the King—Confers with the Ministers upon the Recall of the Parliaments.

IF at the end of a cultivated education and a laborious youth, my parents could have left me an entire liberty as to the choice of a vocation, my invincible curiosity, my dominant taste for the study of mankind and its great interests, my insatiable desire to learn new things, and to form new combinations, would have led me to throw myself into politics.” So Beaumarchais had written in 1764, at a time when his intimacy with the diplomatic circle of the court of Madrid had opened up a vista of possible future usefulness in the world of politics and of vast business enterprises, connected with matters of national importance. When his hopes in both these directions had been blighted, we have seen him returning home, bent only upon giving up his appointments at court and retiring with Pauline to the West Indies, there to lead the life of a planter. This dream having likewise dissolved, his next thought was to find consolation in literature. Happy at last in his second marriage, prosperous and rich, his ambition limited itself for a time to the following of a literary career. Suddenly robbed of all these blessings by the untimely death of his wife and infant son, attacked by powerful enemies, forced to defend his honor and his life, we have followed him to where he now stands, a civilly degraded man, powerless in the grasp of overwhelmingly adverse circumstances.

As we already have seen in this narrative, Beaumarchais was no stranger to adversity, whose only effect upon his character seems to have been to rouse him to ever greater and greater efforts to overcome the obstacles that would have seemed to another insurmountable. So in this case we find him turning at once the whole force of his being to outside conditions in order to discover what still remains to be done.

The path which opened before him was one that could have presented itself only under such conditions of abuse of authority and of misrule as characterized the declining years of Louis XV, a condition which allowed justice to be given over into the hands of the infamous parliament of which it has just been question, and which tolerated by the side of the King of France a woman, Madame du Barry, who had begun her career as a girl of the streets.

In the occult diplomacy of the court of Louis XV there was need enough for secret agents, and it was in this capacity that we find our civilly degraded man entering upon that new phase of his career which was so soon to place him where he could take a hand in directing the destinies of nations.

In speaking of this, M. de Loménie has said, “The history of the secret missions of Beaumarchais is instructive if we would attempt to understand absolute governments. The weak side of liberal governments, and the consequences of the abuse sometimes made of liberty, have of late years been sufficiently exposed for it to be interesting to see what went on behind the scenes of absolute power.... and to note by what complicated ways an unjustly condemned man was obliged to pass to obtain his rehabilitation, and how in revenge, this same man, stricken with civil death by a tribunal, was able to become the confidential agent of two kings and their ministers, and little by little make himself so useful that he reconquered his civil state and obtained control of a great transaction, one worthy of himself and of his intelligence.” This transaction was of course no other than his intervention in the cause of American Independence.

But now in regard to his secret mission, it will be remembered that after the parliament had pronounced its crushing sentence, silence had been imposed upon him by the authority of the King. Strange as it may seem, Louis XV was not unfriendly to the petulant man who had so warmly defended himself. He had followed the suit with interest, had read the memoirs, and even amused himself at the expense of the magistracy, which he had himself established in defiance of the whole nation. The indolence and levity of the King’s character showed themselves clearly in this attitude. So long as things lasted tant que lui he was satisfied to amuse himself in any way that offered, regardless of the future. One day he said to La Borde (first valet de chambre of the King and friend of Beaumarchais), “They say that your friend has a superior talent for negotiation; if he could be successfully and secretly employed in an affair which interests me, his own affairs would be the better for it.” The matter which weighed upon the old king, the settlement of which was to be the price of the rehabilitation of Beaumarchais, was one that had been troubling him for more than a year.

There was at this time, established in London, a certain French adventurer, Theveneau de Morande, who, says Loménie, “had taken refuge in England, where, speculating upon scandal, he composed coarse libels which he clandestinely introduced into France, and in which he defamed, outraged and calumniated without distinction, every name, more or less known, which presented itself under his pen. He had published amongst other works, under the impudent title of le Gazetier cuirassé, a collection of atrocities, perfectly in accord with the impudence of the title. Profiting from the terror he inspired, he sent from time to time across the Channel, demands for money, from those who feared his attacks.... For a manufacturer of this kind, Madame du Barry was a mine of gold; so he wrote to that lady announcing the near publication (except in case of a handsome ransom) of an interesting work of which her life was the subject, under the alluring title of Mémoires secrets d’une femme publique. Anyone else but Madame du Barry might have disdained the insults of the pamphleteer, or have brought him to justice before the English tribunals; it can easily be understood that Madame du Barry could take neither of these alternatives. Alarmed and furious, she communicated her anger and her fears to Louis XV.”

The King began by demanding George III to give up the adventurer. The English Government had no desire to harbor such a character and replied that if the French King did not wish to pursue legally the pamphleteer, he might arrest him, but only on condition that it was done with absolute secrecy and without arousing the susceptibilities of the English populace. Louis XV then set about preparing for his capture.

Theveneau de Morande was on the alert, and having been warned, he forestalled the King by posing publicly as a persecuted political refugee, placing himself under the protection of the London public. He had not misjudged the temper of the people amongst whom he had sought refuge. Furious at the thought of such a desecration of English law, a band of supporters of Morande lay in wait, so that the secret agents on arriving in London were known and followed. They were on the point of being seized and thrown into the Thames when they learned of their betrayal, and so were obliged to hurry with all possible speed back to France, with their object unaccomplished.

Gloating over his triumph, the unprincipled adventurer hastened on his publication, becoming daily more insolent in his demands. Louis XV sent numerous agents across the channel to attempt to treat with him, but all to no purpose, for the wily Morande, posing now before the public as a defender of public morality, retained the protection of the people and thus escaped the agents in question. Things were at this pass when the thought occurred to the King of employing the talents of Beaumarchais in terminating this difficult negotiation.

The sentence of the Parliament Maupeou, it will be remembered, had been rendered the 26th of February, 1774; early in March the civilly degraded man started for London, and as his own name was too widely known through his memoirs to admit of secrecy, he assumed that of Ronac, anagram of Caron. The firmness, tact, and above all the persuasiveness of his character, enabled him in a few days completely to gain the confidence of Morande, so that he reappeared almost immediately at Versailles to the unbounded astonishment of the King, bringing a specimen of the libel, and prepared to receive final orders for the termination of the affair. The King sent him back to London in quality of his confidential agent to see that the entire scandalous publication was destroyed by fire, and the future silence of Morande secured. Both objects were speedily accomplished.

Immediately following the destruction of the Memoirs of Mme. du Barry, Beaumarchais wrote to Morande, “You have done your best, Monsieur, to prove to me that you return in good faith to the sentiments and the conduct of an honest Frenchman, from which your heart reproached you long before I did, of having deviated; it is in persuading myself that you have the design of persisting in these praiseworthy resolutions, that I take pleasure in corresponding with you. What difference in our two destinies! It happened to fall into my way to arrest the publication of a scandalous libel; I work night and day for six weeks; I travel nearly two thousand miles. I spend 500 louis to prevent innumerable evils. You gain at this work, 100,000 francs and your tranquillity, while as for me, I do not even know that my traveling expenses will be repaid.”

When Beaumarchais arrived in Paris he hastened to Versailles to receive the reward of his activity. He found the old King attacked by a fatal disease, and in a few days he was no more. “I admire,” he wrote the same day, “the strangeness of the fate which follows me. If the King had lived in health eight days longer, I would have been reinstated in the rights which iniquity has taken from me, I had his royal word.”

A few days later he wrote to Morande, “Restored to my family and friends, my affairs are quite as little advanced as before my voyage to England, through the unexpected death of the King. I seize the first instant of repose to write to you and to compliment you, Monsieur, very sincerely upon your actual condition. Each one of us has done his best; I to tear you from the certain misfortune which menaced you and your friends, and you to prove a return with good faith to the sentiments and conduct of a true Frenchman.... There only remains to me for total recompense the satisfaction of having fulfilled my duty as an honest man and a good citizen.... What consoles me is that the time of intrigue and cabal is over. Restored to my legal defense the new King will not impose silence on my legitimate reclamations; I shall obtain, by force of right, and by title of justice that which the late King was only willing to accord me as a favor.” (Quoted from Lintilhac, Beaumarchais et ses œuvres, p. 62.)

Here as elsewhere, true to the instincts of his nature, he accepted the inevitable, while looking about him to see what remained to be done. Realizing that the service accomplished for Louis XV could have small interest for the virtuous young monarch just ascending the throne, he had no thought for the moment of pressing for his rehabilitation, but preferred to wait until some opportunity offered for making himself useful, and if possible necessary, to the young King.

In November of the same year, he had the satisfaction of seeing the parliament abolished which had degraded him. More than this, his opinion was sought as to the best means to be employed in the re-establishment of the ancient magistracy. Gudin, in his life of Beaumarchais says, “The ministers were divided in opinion as to the best means to employ in recalling the parliaments; they consulted Beaumarchais, and demanded of him a short, elementary memoir, where his principles should be exposed in a way proper to instruct every clear mind.... He obeyed and gave them under the title of—Idées élementaires sur le rappel du parlement—a memoir, which contains the most just ideas, the purest principles upon the establishment of that body, and the limitations of its powers....” The Ministers, however, did not dare to follow the simplicity of the principles he laid down. After much discussion the parliaments were recalled, and though the liberties of the people received but slight attention, “Everyone was too flattered by the return of the ancient magistracy, to think of the future.”

In the midst of his correspondence with the ministers over this matter of public import, Beaumarchais did not forget his own private interests. He wrote to M. de Sartine, “I have cut out the fangs of three monsters in destroying two libels, and stopping the impression of a third, and in return I have been deceived, robbed, imprisoned, my health is destroyed; but what is that if the King is satisfied? Let him say ‘I am content,’ and I shall be completely so, other recompense I do not wish. The King is already too much surrounded by greedy askers. Let him know that in a corner of Paris he has one disinterested servitor—that is all I ask.

“I hope that you do not wish me to remain blâmé by that vile Parliament which you have just buried under the debris of its dishonor. All Europe has avenged me of its odious and absurd judgment, but that is not enough. There must be a decree to destroy the one pronounced by it. I shall not cease to work for this end, but with the moderation of a man who fears neither intrigue nor injustice. I expect your good offices for this important object.

Gudin, after quoting this letter, adds “According to the immemorial custom of all courts, they were much more eager to make use of the zeal of a servitor than to render him justice. Nevertheless they repealed the prohibition to play his Barbier de Séville.”

This was near the end of 1774. Already Beaumarchais again had been appealed to, to suppress another scandalous publication, the appearance of which was announced immediately after the accession of Louis XVI to the throne of France. It had for title, Avis à la branche espagnole sur ses droits à la couronne de France, à défaut d’héritiers (Advice to the Spanish branch, upon its claims to the crown of France in default of heirs.) Although in appearance political, it was in reality a libel directed against the young queen Marie Antoinette. In a memoir addressed to the King after the suppression of the publication, Beaumarchais accounts for its appearance in the following manner, he says, “As soon as your Majesty had mounted the throne, several changes made, several courtiers disgraced, having caused strong resentments to germinate, suddenly there appeared in England and Holland a new libel against you, Sire, and against the Queen. I went with all haste, and an express order of your Majesty augmenting my courage, I followed up the book and the editor to the point of extinction.”

“All that was known of this pamphlet,” says Loménie, “was that its publication was confided to an Italian named Guillaume Angelucci, who in England went under the name of William Atkinson, and who used a host of precautions to insure his incognito. He had at his disposition enough money to enable him to produce two editions at the same time, one in England and the other in Holland. In order to ensure success to his enterprise and still more no doubt, to heighten the importance of the rôle he was about to play, Beaumarchais in accepting this second undesirable mission had demanded a written order from the King, bearing the royal signature. This had been refused. Beaumarchais started for London without delay, but had by no means given up the idea of obtaining the written order which seemed to him so important.”

“I have seen the Lord Rochford,” he wrote to M. de Sartine, “and found him as affectionate as usual, but when I explained to him this affair, he remained cold as ice. I turned and returned it in every way, I invoked our friendship, reclaimed his confidence, warmed his amour-propre by the hope of being agreeable to our King, but I could judge from the nature of his replies that he regarded my commission as an affair of police, of espionage, in a word of sous-ordre....

“You should do the impossible to bring the King to send me an order or mission signed by him, in about the terms which I have indicated at the end of this letter. This need is as delicate, as it is essential for you to-day. So many agents have been sent to London in relation to the last libel, they were often of so questionable a character, that anyone who seems to belong to the same order, cannot expect to be looked upon except with contempt. This is the basis of your argument with the King. Tell him of my visit to the Lord. It is certain that one cannot decently expect that minister, however friendly he may be, to lend himself to the service of my master, if that master puts no difference between the delicate and secret mission with which he honors an honest man, and an order with which a police officer is charged.”

M. de Sartine seemed to have been convinced, at all events he succeeded in inducing the young king to copy with docility the model which Beaumarchais had drawn up, and which ran as follows:

“The sieur de Beaumarchais, charged by my secret orders, will start for his destination as soon as possible; the discretion and vivacity which he will put into their execution will be the most agreeable proofs which he can give me of his zeal for my service.

Beaumarchais, exultant, wrote at once to the minister, “The order of my master is still virgin, that is to say, it has been seen by no one; but if it has not yet served me in relation to others, it has none the less been of a marvelous help to myself, in multiplying my powers and redoubling my courage.”

He even went so far as to address the King personally. He wrote, “A lover wears about his neck the portrait of his mistress; a miser, his keys; a devotee, his reliquary—while as for me, I have had made a flat oval case of gold, in which I have enclosed the order of your Majesty, and which I have suspended about my neck with a chain of gold, as the thing the most necessary for my work, and the most precious for myself.”

Satisfied at last in his ambition to have in his possession a written order from the King, Beaumarchais set about arranging with redoubled zeal for the suppression of the publication mentioned before. “He succeeded,” says Loménie, “through great supply of eloquence, but also through great supply of money. For 1,400 pounds sterling, the Jew renounced the speculation. The manuscript and four thousand copies were burned in London. The two contractors then betook themselves to Amsterdam for the purpose of destroying the Holland edition. Beaumarchais secured the written engagement of Angelucci, and then free from care, he gave himself up to the pleasure of visiting Amsterdam en tourist.”

Up to this point the authority of M. de Loménie seems to hold good upon this mission of Beaumarchais, which of late years has given rise to much bitter controversy. “This obscure affair Angelucci—Atkinson,” says Lintilhac, “has caused as much ink to flow in the last twenty years, as the chefs-d’œuvre of our author.”

We shall not attempt here to enter into the intricacies of this case, and shall scarcely blame our hero, even supposing we should find him playing a bit of comedy, very much à la Figaro, upon the stage of real life; for it is necessary to recall the fact that under the cloak of philosophic acceptance of his fate, Beaumarchais was all the while, at heart, a desperate man. The death of the old King at the moment when he had every reason to expect a speedy restitution to his rights as citizen, had been a cruel blow which left him in a state of inward desperation. When we consider the intense mental excitement in which he had been living from the day of his frightful adventure with the duc de Chaulnes, his imprisonment, the loss of his property, the dissolution of his family, the execration of his enemies, the adulation of a nation; when we consider all this and the events immediately following, our wonder is, not that Beaumarchais lost for a time his sense of proportion and the true relation of things, but rather that he had not been a thousand times over, crushed and broken by the overwhelming combination of circumstances against which he had struggled.

There is no doubt that now, at the moment of the termination of his mission, his one idea was to exaggerate to the utmost the apparent value of what he had accomplished, so that it would seem worth the price which he desired for it, in the eyes of the young master whom he served. It was no favor that he wanted; he desired nothing but to be allowed to work, but his rehabilitation he must have at whatever cost. He knew only too well that to the young King it was, after all, a matter of supreme indifference whether or not he, Beaumarchais, regained his civil rights. The affair of the libel even, had scarcely penetrated his consciousness; that was a matter for the ministers to attend to. Beaumarchais felt, therefore, that something must be done to force himself upon the attention of the royal pair, both so young and so unconscious, not to say heedless, of the duties of their station; the young Queen thinking of nothing but the amusement of the hour, the King asking only to be relieved from the responsibilities of state and of individual action. How was Beaumarchais then to arouse in them sufficient interest to cause them to give a moment’s attention to his wrongs? The spirit of adventure which always animated him, his taste for intrigue, his talent of mis en scène, all combined to aid him in what he undertook. He decided before he returned to France, to present himself therefore before the Empress of Austria, sure that by his talents, his address, and show of fervent zeal in the interest of his Queen, he would win the tender heart of that tenderest of mothers. To give a show of reason to his appearance before the Empress, and to enhance the interest he might arouse, he imagined a wild and romantic story, the heroic part of which he was himself to have acted. On his way down the Danube, he wrote a detailed account of this supposed happening, sending several copies to friends—among others to Gudin, who were asked to inform his extended circle of acquaintances, of this rare new adventure which had befallen him. It may be stated briefly as follows: After having destroyed the libel in London and Amsterdam, and relieved from all further responsibility, he supposed himself suddenly to have discovered that the wily Angelucci had retained a copy of the libel, and that he had gone on to Nuremberg with the intention of there issuing another publication. Furious at this breach of faith, Beaumarchais hurriedly followed after, stopping neither night nor day. He overtook Angelucci in the forest of Neustadt, not far from Nuremberg. The rattling of the chaise attracted the attention of the Jew, who, turning round, recognized his pursuer, and being on horseback, dashed into the forest, hoping thereby to make good his escape. Beaumarchais, however, springing from the chaise, followed after on foot. The density of the forest enabled him to overtake Angelucci, whom he dragged from his horse. In the depths of his traveling sack, the infamous libel was discovered. Then he let Angelucci go. As Beaumarchais was returning to the highway, he was fallen upon by two robbers who attacked him savagely and from whom he defended himself with bravery. He was delivered from them by their taking fright at the noise of the postilion, who, uneasy at the long delay, had come to see what had happened to the traveler. The latter was found, with face and hands badly wounded. He passed the night in Nuremberg, and next morning, without waiting to have his wounds dressed, he hastened on to Vienna.

In a procès-verbal, under date of September 7, 1774, held by the Burgomaster of Nuremberg, under order of Marie Thérèse, Empress of Austria, the bourgeois Conrad Gruber, keeping the inn of the Coq Rouge at Nuremberg, explained how M. de Ronac arrived at his inn, wounded in the face and hands, the evening of August 14th, after a scene in the woods, and he added “that it was remarked that M. de Ronac seemed to be very uneasy, that he had risen very early in the morning, and wandered all over the house, in such a way that from this and his general manner, it appeared that his wits were a little disordered.”

As we said, Beaumarchais immediately hastened on to Vienna. Once arrived in the capital, the question was, how to penetrate to the august presence of the Empress. Absolutely without recommendation of any sort, traveling as an inconspicuous M. de Ronac—anyone but Beaumarchais would have renounced so wild and impossible a project from the beginning. In a very lengthy memoir addressed to Louis XVI by Beaumarchais after his return to France, the latter gives a minute account of this most singular adventure. The following extracts will enable us to follow him:

“My first care at Vienna was to write a letter to the Empress. The fear that the letter might be seen by other eyes prevented me from explaining the motive of the audience which I solicited. I attempted simply to excite her curiosity. Having no possible access to her, I went to her secretary, M. le baron de Neny, who, on my refusing to tell him what I desired, and judging from my slashed face, took me for a wild adventurer.... He received me as badly as was possible, refused to take charge of my letter, and would have entirely rejected my advances had I not assumed a tone as proud as his own, and assured him that I made him responsible to the Empress for all the evil which his refusal might make to an operation of the greatest importance, if he did not instantly take my letter and give it to the sovereign. More astonished by my tone than he had been by my face, he took my letter unwillingly, and said that for all that, I need not hope that the Empress would see me. ‘It is not this, Monsieur, that need disquiet you. If the Empress refuses me an audience, you and I will have done our duty....’

“The next day I was conducted to Schoenbrunn, and into the presence of Her Majesty.... I first presented to the Empress the order of your Majesty, Sire, of which she perfectly recognized the writing.... She then permitted me to speak.... ‘Madame,’ I said, ‘it is here less a matter of state interest, properly speaking, than the efforts which black intrigues are making in France to destroy the happiness of the King.’ Here I recited the details of my negotiation, and the incidents of my voyage to Vienna.

“At every circumstance, the Empress, joining her hands in surprise, repeated, ‘But, Monsieur, where have you found so ardent a zeal for the interests of my son-in-law, and above all, of my daughter?’

“‘Madame, I was the most unfortunate man of France during the last reign; the queen in that terrible time did not disdain to show an interest in my fate. In serving her to-day, I am only acquitting an immense debt; the more difficult the enterprise, the more my ardor is inflamed....’

“‘Madame, I am unfortunately too well known in Europe under my own name to permit me to employ it while undertaking so delicate and important a mission as the one in which I am engaged.’

“The Empress seemed to have a great curiosity to read the work whose destruction had caused me so much trouble. The reading immediately followed our explanation. Her Majesty had the goodness to enter with me into the most intimate details of this subject; she had also that of listening a great deal to what I had to say. I remained with her more than three hours and a half, and I implored her not to waste a moment in sending to Nuremberg and securing the person of Angelucci....

“The Empress had the goodness to thank me for the ardent zeal which I had shown; she begged me to leave the pamphlet with her until the next day. ‘Go and repose yourself,’ she said, with infinite grace, ‘and see that you are promptly bled....’”

Whatever pleasing effect the ardor and enthusiasm of Beaumarchais may have produced upon Marie Thérèse, it was soon dispelled by the Chancellor Kaunitz, to whom she at once showed the libel, and related the adventure as she had heard it from Beaumarchais. Kaunitz not only pronounced the whole story an invention, but at once suspected that Beaumarchais himself was the author of the libel, and that the Jew Angelucci was a fabrication of his own brain. At the Chancellor’s instigation, Beaumarchais was at once arrested and kept in custody until the matter could be cleared up. To continue the narrative as given by Beaumarchais in his report to the King:

“I returned to Vienna, my head still hot with the excitement of that conference. I threw upon paper a host of observations which seemed to me very important relative to the subject in question; I addressed them to the Empress.... The same day at nine o’clock I saw enter my room, eight grenadiers, bayonets and guns, two officers with naked swords, and a secretary of the regency bringing me word which invited me to allow myself to be arrested, reserving all explanations. ‘No resistance,’ said the officer to me.

“‘Monsieur,’ I replied coldly, ‘I sometimes have resisted robbers, but never Empresses.’ I was made to put all my papers under seal. I demanded permission to write to the Empress, and was refused. All my effects were taken from me, knives, scissors, even to my buckles, and a numerous guard was left in my room, where it remained thirty-one days or forty-five thousand, six hundred and forty minutes; because, while the hours fly so rapidly for happy people that they scarcely note their succession, those who are unfortunate count time by minutes and seconds, and find it flows slowly when each one is noted separately....

“One may judge of my surprise, of my fury! The next day the person who arrested me came to tranquilize me. ‘Monsieur,’ I replied, ‘there is no repose for me until I have written to the Empress. What happened to me is inconceivable. Give me paper and pens or prepare to chain me, for here is surely enough to drive one mad.’

“At last permission was given me to write; M. de Sartine has all my letters; read them, and the nature of my sorrows will be seen.... I wrote, I supplicated—no reply. ‘If I am a scoundrel, send me back to France, let me there be tried and judged....’

“When, on the thirty-first day of my detention, I was set at liberty, they told me that I might return to France or remain in Vienna, as I wished. And if I should die on the way, I would not have remained another quarter of an hour in Vienna. A thousand ducats were presented to me which I firmly refused. ‘You have no money, all your belongings are in France.’

“‘I will give my note and borrow what is absolutely necessary for my journey.’

“‘And I accept no favors but from my master; he is sufficiently great to recompense me if I have served him well.’

“‘Monsieur, the Empress will think that you are taking a great liberty to refuse her favors.’

“‘Monsieur, the only liberty which cannot be taken from a very respectful but cruelly outraged man is the liberty to refuse favors. For the rest, my master will decide whether I am right or wrong in this conduct, but as to my decision—it remains as I have said.’

“The same evening I left Vienna, and traveling day and night, I arrived the ninth day, hoping at last for an explanation. All that M. de Sartine has been willing to say to me is: ‘Que voulez-vous? The Empress took you for an adventurer....’

“Sire, be so good as not to disapprove of my refusal to accept the money of the Empress, and permit me to return it to Vienna. I should, however, be willing to accept an honorable word, or her portrait, or any similar token which I could oppose to the reproach which is everywhere made me of having been arrested in Vienna as a suspicious character.... I await the orders of your Majesty.

The money was subsequently returned, and in its place a valuable diamond ring was sent by the Empress. This ring shone on its possessor’s finger, from henceforth, on all occasions of ceremony. As for the suspicions of Kaunitz, which have been shared by many, we can do no more than refer the reader to the special literature on this subject. The story of the brigands is unquestionably an invention, as for proofs of forgery, or real guilt of any kind,—after the most exhaustive investigations, none has ever been found.

In his edition of the History of Beaumarchais, by Gudin, 1888, Maurice Tourneux in a lengthy note points out the fallacies in the story of this adventure as told by Gudin. After speaking of the most recent accusations against Beaumarchais, he says, “But it must be admitted, this is to venture upon a series of very serious as well as practically gratuitous accusations.”

Lintilhac does not hesitate to assert that Angelucci did exist, and that not a line of the libel is from the pen of Beaumarchais. As this is the most recent study of the subject which has appeared, it attempts to answer all the arguments set forth by the adversaries of Beaumarchais, and through before unpublished documents, to prove the fallacy of all their conjectures. (See Beaumarchais et ses œuvres, by E. Lintilhac, Paris, 1889.)

What is, however, of vital importance for the life of Beaumarchais, and above all for the very important rôle which he is about to play in the War of American Independence, is that the adventure just related did not in the least bring upon him the dislike of Marie Antoinette, who had always protected him, or of Louis XVI, or his ministers. On the contrary, he had hardly returned when he found himself summoned to confer with the heads of the government upon the recall of the parliaments. A greater honor could scarcely have been paid to the sound judgment of the man who passed for the wittiest, the most fascinating, in a word the most brilliant man of his time. While conferring with the ministers upon weighty matters of state, Beaumarchais took pains at the same time to obliterate as far as possible from the public mind the impression made by the news of his imprisonment at Vienna. Immediately on his arrival, he launched forth a song which he had composed for this purpose, a song which became at once universally popular, and which renewed the admiration of the people for its author.

“Toujours, toujours, il est toujours le même,
Jamais Robin,
Ne connut le chagrin,
Le temps sombre on serein,
Les jours gras, le carême;
Le matin ou le soir;
Dites blanc, dites noir,
“Toujours, toujours, il est toujours le même.”

In previous chapters, we have spoken already of the intimacy of Beaumarchais with Lenormant D’Etioles. The latter’s fête happening a few days after Beaumarchais’s return from Vienna, he suddenly appeared unannounced in the midst of the gay festival, to the unbounded joy of his old friends. As the entertainment progressed, Beaumarchais absented himself for half an hour, returning with a song in dialect, which he had just composed in honor of his host. A young man present sang it before the company. Its success was complete, and along with the one previously mentioned, it soon spread all over Paris. This song contained a verse which recalled in a very pleasing way, the personal affair which was of such great importance to the author, and which had served to make him popular. He was thus kept fresh in the public mind and its sympathetic interest was conserved.

“Mes chers amis, pourriez-vous m’enseigner
J’im bon seigneur don cha’un parle?
Je ne sais pas comment vous l’designer
C’pendent, on dit qu’il a nom Charle ...

L’hiver passé j’eut un mandit procès
Qui m’donna bien d’la tablature.
J’m’en vais vous l’dire: ils m’avons mis exprès
Sous c’te nouvelle magistrature;
Charlot venait, jarni,
Me consolait, si fit;
Ami, ta cause est bonne et ronde ...

CHAPTER XIII

“J’ai donc eu la faiblesse autrefois, Monsieur, de faire des drames qui n’etaient pas du bon genre; et je m’en repens beaucoup.

“Pressé depuis, par les événements, j’ai hasardé de malheureux mémoires que mes ennemis n’ont pas trouvés de bon style; j’en ai le remords cruel.

“Aujourd’hui je fais glisser sous vos yeux, une comédie fort gaie, que certains maîtres de goût n’estiment pas du bon ton; et je ne m’en console point.

“Je ne voudrais pas jurer qu’il en fut seulement question dans cinq ou six siècles; tant notre nation est inconstante et légère.”

The Character of Figaro—The First Performance of Le Barbier de Séville—Its Success after Failure—Beaumarchais’s Innovation at the Closing of the Theatre—His First Request for an Exact Account from the Actors—Barbier de Séville at the Petit-Trianon.

ASIDE from Beaumarchais’s participation in the affairs of the War of American Independence, the chief title to glory which his admirers can claim for him is his creation of the character of Figaro.

“Certainly no comic personage,” says Gudin, “has more the tone, the esprit, the gaiety, the intelligence, the lightness, that kind of insouciance and intrepid self-confidence which characterizes the French people.”

So long and lovingly had Beaumarchais carried about with him this child of his esprit, that the two at last practically had become one. Gudin says, “The handsome, the gay, the amiable Figaro, daring and philosophical, making sport of his masters and not able to get on without them, murmuring under the yoke and yet bearing it with gaiety” is no other than Beaumarchais in person. “Welcomed in one city, imprisoned in another, and everywhere superior to events, praised by these, blamed by those, enduring evil, making fun of the stupid, braving the wicked, laughing at misery and shaving all the world, you see me at last in Seville.”

“Figaro—‘The habit of misfortune, I hasten to laugh at everything for fear of being obliged to weep.’ (‘Le Barbier de Séville,’ Act I, Scene II) or again—

“Figaro—‘That is precisely my misfortune, your Excellency. When it became known to the ministers that I sent enigmas to the journals, that madrigals were afloat of my making, in a word that I had been printed alive, they took it tragically, and deprived me of my position under the pretext that the love of letters is incompatible with l’esprit des affaires.’”

When Figaro re-appears a few years later, we shall see all his characteristics intensified in proportion as the experiences and success of Beaumarchais had heightened his daring and address.

We must not make the mistake however of identifying Beaumarchais with his creation, for to create Figaro required one greater than he. There is undoubtedly a strongly developed Figaro side to Beaumarchais’s nature and it is this which always had prevented him from being taken seriously, and which made him an unfathomable being even to those very persons who depended upon and profited most by his rare gifts.

With such limitless resources, such power of combination, such insight, incapable of taking offense at any injury, so generous, forgiving, laughing at misfortune, how could he be taken seriously? With Beaumarchais, as with Figaro, it is the very excess of his qualities and gifts which alarms. As one of his biographers has said, “What deceives is, that in seeing Figaro display so much esprit, so much daring, we involuntarily fear that he will abuse his powers in using them for evil; this fear is really a kind of homage; Figaro in the piece, like Beaumarchais in the world, gives a handle to calumny but never justifies it. The one and the other never interfere except for good, and if they love intrigue it is principally because it gives them occasion to use their esprit.”

The first conception of Figaro dates very far back in the history of Beaumarchais. Already before his return from Spain the character was beginning to take form in his mind. Its first appearance was in a farce produced at the Château d’Étioles. We have spoken already of its rejection by the Comédie des Italiens, after it had assumed the form of a comic opera. Made over into a drama, it had soon after been accepted by the Théâtre-Français.

It will perhaps be remembered that following the frightful adventure with the duc de Chaulnes, Beaumarchais had spent the evening of that same day in reading his play to a circle of friends. It had at that time passed the censor and had been approved. Permission for its presentation had been signed by M. de Sartine, then lieutenant of police, and it was advertised for the thirteenth of February of that year, 1773. The affair with the Duke happened on the 11th, two days before the piece was to be performed. The difficulties which immediately followed were of a nature to cause the performance to be postponed indefinitely.

A year later, however, when the great success of the memoirs of Beaumarchais had made him so famous, “the comedians,” says Loménie, “wished to profit by the circumstance. They solicited permission to play the Barbier de Séville.”

But the police, fearing to find in it satirical allusions to the suit then in progress, caused a new censorship to be appointed, before permission could be obtained. Their report was, “The play has been censored with the greatest rigor but not a single word has been found which applies to the present situation.”

The representation was announced for Saturday, the 12th of February, 1774. Two days before this date, however, came an order from the authorities which prohibited the presentation. The noise had gone abroad that the piece had been altered and that it was full of allusions to the suit. Beaumarchais denied this rumor in a notice which terminates thus:

“I implore the court to be so good as to order that the manuscript of my piece, as it was consigned to the police a year ago, and as it was to be performed, be presented; I submit myself to all the rigor of the ordinances if in the context, or in the style of the work, anything be found which has the faintest allusion to the unhappy suit which M. Goëzman has raised against me and which would be contrary to the profound respect which I profess for the parliament.

The prohibition was not removed and the piece was not presented until after the return of the author from Vienna in December, 1774.

“He then obtained permission,” says Loménie, “to have his Barbier played. Between the obtaining of the permission and the presentation he put himself at his ease; his comedy had been prohibited because of pretended allusions which did not exist; he compensated himself for this unjust prohibition by inserting precisely all the allusions which the authorities feared to find in it and which were not there. He reinforced it with a great number of satirical generalities, with a host of more or less audacious puns. He added a good many lengthy passages, increased it by an act and overcharged it so completely that it fell flat the day of its first appearance before the public.”

The defeat was all the more striking because of the fame of the author; the public curiosity so long kept in abeyance had brought such a crowd to the first presentation as had never before been equalled in the annals of the theater.

“Never,” says Grimm, “had a first presentation attracted so many people.” The surprise of himself and his friends was extreme, for Beaumarchais instead of applause received the hisses of the parterre. Anyone else might have been discouraged, or at least disturbed by so unexpected a turn, not so Beaumarchais.

In his own account of the defeat, wittily told in the famous preface to the Barbier, published three months later, he says, “The god of Cabal is irritated; I said to the comedians with force, ‘Children, a sacrifice here is necessary,’ and so giving the devil his part, and tearing my manuscript, ‘god of the hissers, spitters, coughers, disturbers,’ I cried, ‘thou must have blood, drink my fourth act and may thy fury be appeased.’ In the instant you should have heard that infernal noise which made the actors grow pale, and falter, weaken in the distance and die away.” But Beaumarchais did more than simply renounce an act, he set instantly to work to rearrange and purify the whole play.

“Surely it is no common thing,” says Loménie, “to see an author pick up a piece justly fallen, and within twenty-four hours ... transform it so that it becomes a charming production, full of life and movement....”

At its second production, “everyone laughed, and applauded from one end to the other of the piece; its cause was completely gained.” (Gudin)

What Beaumarchais did, was to restore the piece to about the form which had been approved and signed by the censors.

Some of the best of the satirical portions which are to be found in the printed play, nevertheless, were inserted before the first presentation, these he dared to retain in the final form.

In accounting for its fall, Gudin says, “A superabundance of esprit produced satiety and fatigued the audience. Beaumarchais then set about pruning his too luxuriantly branching tree, pulled off the leaves which hid the flowers—thus allowing one to taste all the charm of its details.”

As might be expected, the success of the play after its first presentation produced a storm of opposition; critics and journals vied with each other to prove to the public that they had again been deceived. Gudin says, “His facility to hazard everything and receive applause awakened jealousy and unchained against him cabals of every kind.”

In the brilliant preface already alluded to, which Beaumarchais published with the play after its success was established, he allowed himself the pleasure of mocking, not only at the journalists and critics, but at the public itself. “You should have seen,” he wrote, “the feeble friends of the Barbier, dispersing themselves, hiding their faces, or disappearing; the women, always so brave when they protect, burying themselves in hoods, and lowering their confused eyes; the men running to make honorable amends for the good they had said of my piece and throwing the pleasure which they had taken in it upon my execrable manner of reading things. Some gazing fixedly to the right when they felt me pass to the left, feigned not to see me, others more courageous, but looking about to assure themselves that no one saw them, drew me into a corner to ask, ‘Eh? how did you produce such an illusion? Because you must admit my friend that you have produced the greatest platitude in the world.’”

Beaumarchais could afford to indulge in such pleasantries, for his piece was not only continuing to draw vast crowds, but it had begun already a triumphant progress over Europe. In St. Petersburg alone it went through fifty representations.

But the revenge of Beaumarchais did not stop here; most of the cuttings which he had been forced to make in the play, the witticisms, jests and tirades were far too good to be lost. He saved them for future use and made the public laugh over and applaud what it first hissed. When Figaro made his second appearance, on the mad day of his marriage, he used them nearly all. Beaumarchais’s revenge then was complete. But while waiting for this, he had the audacity to make the comedians themselves mock at their own playing, as we shall see presently.

The story of the Barbier de Séville is of the simplest: “Never,” says Lintilhac, “did any one make a better thing out of nothing.”

A young nobleman, the count Almaviva, tired of the conquests which interest, convention, and vanity make so easy, has left Madrid to follow to Seville a charming, sweet, and fresh young girl Rosine, with whom he has never been able to exchange a word owing to the constant oversight of her guardian, the Doctor Bartholo, who is on the point of marrying her and securing to himself her fortune. In the words of Figaro, the doctor is a “beautiful, fat, short, young, old man, slightly gray, cunning, sharp, cloyed, who watches, ferrets, scolds and grumbles all at the same time and so naturally inspires only aversion in the charming Rosine.” The count, on the contrary, is a sympathetic figure, who, although disguised as a student and only seen from afar, has already won the heart of the young girl.

Figaro, the gay and resourceful barber to Bartholo has long ago succeeded in making himself indispensable to the latter and to his whole household, while at the same time taking advantage of the avarice and cunning of the doctor and turning them to his own account. It is he who recognizes the disguise of the student, his old master, the count Almaviva, loitering under Rosine’s window, and offers his services in outwitting the doctor whose arrangements are made for the consummation of his marriage on that self-same day.

It is no easy matter which he here undertakes, for with all his resourcefulness, Figaro has to deal with a suspicious old man, subtle and cunning, who is almost as resourceful as himself.

The count obtains entrance to the house as a music teacher sent by Rosine’s usual instructor whom the count announces as ill.

A most amusing scene ensues when Basile, the true instructor, appears, unconscious that he has a substitute and where, by the quick wit of the others, even the old doctor is made to laugh him out of the house, before the situation is spoiled. Basile goes, utterly mystified by the whole proceeding, but carrying with him “one of the irresistible arguments with which the count’s pockets are always filled.”

The embroglio thickens. Although Bartholo is constantly on his guard and suspicious of everyone, especially of Figaro, the latter succeeds in getting the key to Rosine’s lattice from the old man’s possession, almost under his very eyes, and then shows it to him, but at a moment when Bartholo is too much taken up with watching the new music teacher to notice the key, or the gesture of Figaro.

In the end, it is by the very means which Bartholo has taken to outwit the others, that the count succeeds in replacing him by the side of Rosine, and leading her before the notary, who arrives, after he has been sent for by Doctor Bartholo. The ceremony is concluded, as the doctor arrives on the scene. The fury of the latter is appeased, however, when he learns that he may keep the fortune of Rosine, while the count leads her off triumphant, happy in the “sweet consciousness of being loved for himself.”

It is to be sure an old, old story, but made into something quite new by the genius of the author. The situation of Basile in the third act, as already described, is absolutely without precedent, while numerous other scenes offer a comique difficult to surpass.

“The style lends wings to the action,” says Lintilhac, “and is so full and keen that the prose rings almost like poetry while his phrases have become proverbs.”

Perhaps the most remarkable passage of the whole play is that upon slander, which Beaumarchais puts into the mouth of Basile,

“Slander, sir! You scarcely know what you are disdaining. I have seen the best of men almost crushed under it. Believe me, there is no stupid calumny, no horror, not an absurd story that one cannot fasten upon the idle people of a great city if one only begins properly, and we have such clever folks!

“First comes a slight rumor, skimming the ground like a swallow before the storm, pianissimo, it murmurs and is gone, sowing behind its empoisoned traits.

“Some mouth takes it up, and piano, piano, it slips adroitly into the ear. The evil is done, it germinates, it grows, it flourishes, it makes its way, and rinforzando, from mouth to mouth it speeds onward; then suddenly, no one knows how, you see slander, erecting itself, hiss, swell, and grow big as you gaze. It darts forward, whirls, envelops, tears up, drags after it, thunders and becomes a general cry; a public crescendo, a universal chorus of hatred and proscription.”

The Barbier de Séville had gone through thirteen presentations when the time arrived for the closing of the theater for the three weeks before Easter. It was a time-honored custom on this occasion for one of the actors to come forward after the last performance was over, and deliver a discourse which was called the compliment de clôture. “Beaumarchais,” says Loménie, “lover of innovation in everything, had the idea of replacing this ordinarily majestic discourse by a sort of proverb of one act, which should be played in the costumes of the Barbier.” In explaining the composition of the proverb he says further, “It has not been sufficient for Beaumarchais to restore to the Théâtre-Français some of the vivid gaiety of the olden time,—he wished for more, he desired not only that the people be made to laugh immoderately, but that one should sing in the theater of Messieurs les comédiens du roi.” This was an enormity and essentially contrary to the dignity of the Comédie-Française. Nevertheless, as Beaumarchais had an obstinate will, the comedians to please him undertook to sing at the first representation the airs introduced into the Barbier; but whether the actors acquitted themselves badly at this unaccustomed task, or whether it was that the public did not like the innovation, all the airs were hissed without pity and it had been necessary to suppress them in the next presentation. There was one air in particular to which the author was strongly attached; it was the air of spring sung by Rosine in the third act. “Quand dans la plaine,” etc. The amiable actress, Mademoiselle Doligny, who had created the rôle of Rosine, little used to singing in public, and still less to being hissed, refused absolutely to recommence the experiment and Beaumarchais had been forced to resign himself to the sacrifice of the air.

At the approach of the day of the clôture, he proposed to the comedians to write for them the compliment which it was the custom to give, but on condition that they sing his famous air which he proposed to bring into the compliment, that was to be played by all the actors of the Barbier.

As Mademoiselle Doligny still refused to sing the bit in question, Beaumarchais suppressed the rôle of Rosine, and replaced it by the introduction of another actress more daring, who sang very agreeably, namely, Mademoiselle Luzzi.

This amusing proverb in the style of the Barbier had a great success and the delicious little spring song as sung by Mademoiselle Luzzi received at last its just applause. In the scene in which it was produced the daring author has dialogued thus:

Bartholo—“A miserable author had promised me one, but at the instant of pronouncing it, he sent us word to serve ourselves elsewhere.”

Mlle. Luzzi—“I am in the secret, he is annoyed that you suppressed in his piece his air of spring.”

Bartholo—“That was well done, the public does not want any one to sing at the Comédie-Française.”

Mlle. Luzzi—“Yes, Doctor, in tragedies; but when did it wish that a gay subject should be deprived of what might increase its agreeableness? Believe me, gentlemen, Monsieur le Public likes anything which amuses him.”