a Beaumarchais soon found to his cost depicted undergoing the punishment of how little serious impression had been whipping like a schoolboy. The next made on the people in power or the high day the matter assumed a more serious personages to whom his lessons were ad- aspect, and the third day, when the audressed. A more outrageous, wanton, thorities, unwilling to give the true reason, and utterly indefensible abuse of author- gave none, the almost universal feeling ity was never hazarded than that of which was expressed by the journalist who, he was the victim when his play was at after recapitulating the facts, wound up the height of its popularity. One of his by asking whether any one could make bitterest assailants was Suard in the sure of sleeping that very night in his "Journal de Paris," who was occasionally bed. On the fifth day Beaumarchais was assisted by "Monsieur." Beaumarchais released from prison, or rather (like closed the controversy by a letter (6th" Figaro") turned out into the street; for March, 1785), in which he said, "When I he insisted on remaining till his offence have had to conquer lions and tigers to was formally specified, and he wrote get a comedy acted, do you expect, after Memoir repudiating l'exécrable démence of its success, to reduce me like a Dutch the notion that he had compared his Sovmaid-servant, to beating out the vile ereign to a tiger. insect of the night?" Monsieur took So rapid was the reaction that the King offence at this contemptuous metaphor was over-persuaded into an amende hoas wholly, or in part, intended for him; norable, which, however creditable to his but, keeping back the genuine griev- feelings and flattering for Beaumarchais, ance, he contrived to persuade the King clearly aggravated the mischief, so far as that the lions and tigers were His Ma- public opinion was concerned. M. de jesty and the Queen. Louis XVI. was Calonne wrote to Beaumarchais that His already irritated against Beaumarchais Majesty considered his justification comfor getting his play acted against the roy-plete, and would seize with pleasure any al wish, and gaining a triumph where the opportunities for bestowing marks of royal critic had prophesied a fall. He favour. So far, so good; but, surely, it was playing at cards when his brother in- was an ill-chosen mark of favour to order troduced the subject, and, without paus- the attendance of the whole ministry at ing to consider the absurdity of the inter- the first representation of "Figaro" after pretation, wrote in pencil on a seven of the author's discharge from Saint-Lazare ; spades an order for arresting Beaumar- as if for the express purpose of giving chais and confining him in Saint-Lazare, then a prison in the nature of a reformatory appropriated to young profligates. -- Considering the age (53) and reputation of Beaumarchais above all, that he had been employed in confidential missions by the Crown-this was, perhaps, the very worst act with which Louis Seize can be personally reproached. It was a blunder of appalling magnitude: placing the monarchy in the worst possible light when its foes were closing round it and hostile eyes were eagerly scrutinizing its weak points. When, on the morning of the 9th March, 1785, the news got abroad that the author of the "Marriage de Figaro" had been arrested the evening before in the middle of his triumph and sent to keep company with the young scapegraces of Saint-Lazare, it was treated as a joke and the first impulse of the Parisian public was to laugh. He was out at Vienna in 1786, with complete success. Rossini's Il Barbiere di Siviglia was first performed in Rome in 1816 or 1817. They are generally regarded as the best specimens of the comic opera; and their popularity is in a great measure due to the situations, the characters, and what has been preserved of the wit. point to the phrase in the dreaded monologue: Ne pouvant avilir l'esprit, on se venge en le maltraitant. Or again, when Figaro supposes himself addressing one of these "ephemeral potentates so careless of the evil they command." 66 I would tell him that printed follies have no checked; that there is no such thing as flatimportance except where their circulation is tering eulogy without liberty to find fault; and that it is only little men that dread little writings. Even this was not enough. The “Barbier de Séville was represented at the little theatre of Trianon: the author was invited to be present; and the Queen played "Rosine," the Comte d' Artois Figaro," and the Comte de Vaudreuil "Almaviva," &c. 66 We should infer from the distribution of parts that the object of this represen tion was rather the amusement of the royal circle than the indemnification of Beaumarchais, who, in point of fact, never completely shook off the ridicule of his confinement in Saint-Lazare. It I was one of those insults which leave a sense of degradation like a blow; and, | sieur le Comte, as I should be under the sobered also by advancing years, he no necessity of breaking with you when longer dashed into conflict with his your bills fell due, I prefer doing so at former spirit or wonted air of assured once. It is twelve thousand francs in success. Indeed, he fairly quailed be- my pocket." fore Mirabeau in their controversy about the Compagnie des Eaux de Paris, which Mirabeau denounced in a flaming pamphlet as a bubble. He was then little known to fame except by the scandals of his life. His pamphlet was notoriously inspired by rival speculators who lent him money, and the company was a really useful undertaking. Beaumarchais, a director and large shareholder, was expected to put forth his peculiar powers in reply. In his happier vein he might have said with Marmion: : Had I but fought as wont, one thrust Four years afterwards a complete reconciliation was brought about, the first advance being made by Mirabeau, who applied to Beaumarchais to cede the purchase of a house in the Bois de Vincennes, which the great orator, then in the height of his fame, fancied as a retreat. The reply of Beaumarchais, who carried anger as the flint bears fire, begins: "I am going to reply to your letter, Monsieur, with frankness and freedom. I have long been looking out for an opportunity to revenge myself on you. It is offered by yourself, and I avail myself of it with joy." His revenge was a graceful cession of the house, after an explanation of the circumstances which made the act a real sacrifice. But he did not fight as wont. The avowed aim of his pamphlet in answer was simply The rest of Beaumarchais' life contains to rectify the misstatements and miscal- incidents, speculations, and enterprises, culations of his adversary; but, unluckily, literary, political, and pecuniary, enough he fell into his old manner just enough to compose three or four ordinary biogto inflict a flesh-wound without striking raphies. He has another lawsuit, involvhome. Comparing Mirabeau's pamphlets to the Philippics," he termed them Mirabelles, and intimated a doubt of the purity of the motives which actuated the penman of the money-lenders. Mirabeau's rejoinder was an invective in his most trenchant manner, a genuine Mirabelle, in which he travestied and disfigured the whole life of Beaumarchais under the pretence of reviewing it, and held him up to public scorn in the names of order and morality. It was Satan reproving Sin, assuming everything he said to be true; and probably one reason which kept Beaumarchais quiet, was the consciousness that he could say nothing of Mirabeau that was not well known already, and could gain nothing by hanging up a companion portrait alongside of his own. ing a prolonged and bitter controversy; in which, reversing his former position, he is condemned by public opinion whilst the courts declare him in the right. He composes an opera "Tarare," which defies all canons of criticism and all theories of art, yet succeeds to the extent of being the sole object of interest in occupied and revolutionary Paris three or four times over. He writes another play, "La Mère Coupable," of which M. de Loménie says: "Weakly played at first (June, 1792), it had little success; afterwards revived in May, 1797, it completely succeeded; and even now, when it is represented by skilful actors, it produces a lively impression on the public. He built a house and laid out a garden at a cost of between sixty and seventy thousand pounds sterling, which were the He might have made an effective com- plague instead of pride or comfort of mencement by relating the original cause his old age; insomuch as they were at of quarrel. Mirabeau, who was always the same time the wonder of Paris and in want of money and on the look-out the cause of his being marked out for for confiding capitalists, called on Beau- persecution and confiscation as an arismarchais (with whom he was not person- tocrat. He contracted to supply the ally acquainted) as one man of wit and French Government with 60,000 muskets pleasure might call on another; and, after an animated colloquy, suddenly, with an affectation of nonchalance, requested the loan of 12,000 francs. Beaumarchais, with equal nonchalance refused. "But it would be easy for you to lend me this sum?""No doubt; but, Mon to be imported from Holland, then an enemy's country. On the strength of this contract he was accused of being in secret correspondence with the royalists, and compelled to take refuge in London, where he was arrested by his English correspondent, and thrown into the a Beaumarchais soon found to his cost depicted undergoing the punishment of how little serious impression had been whipping like a schoolboy. The next made on the people in power or the high day the matter assumed a more serious personages to whom his lessons were ad- aspect, and the third day, when the audressed. A more outrageous, wanton, thorities, unwilling to give the true reason, and utterly indefensible abuse of author- gave none, the almost universal feeling ity was never hazarded than that of which was expressed by the journalist who, he was the victim when his play was at after recapitulating the facts, wound up the height of its popularity. One of his by asking whether any one could make bitterest assailants was Suard in the sure of sleeping that very night in his "Journal de Paris," who was occasionally bed. On the fifth day Beaumarchais was assisted by "Monsieur." Beaumarchais released from prison, or rather (like closed the controversy by a letter (6th " Figaro") turned out into the street; for March, 1785), in which he said, "When I he insisted on remaining till his offence have had to conquer lions and tigers to was formally specified, and he wrote get a comedy acted, do you expect, after Memoir repudiating l'exécrable démence of its success, to reduce me like a Dutch the notion that he had compared his Sovmaid-servant, to beating out the vile ereign to a tiger. insect of the night?" Monsieur took So rapid was the reaction that the King offence at this contemptuous metaphor was over-persuaded into an amende hoas wholly, or in part, intended for him; norable, which, however creditable to his but, keeping back the genuine griev- feelings and flattering for Beaumarchais, ance, he contrived to persuade the King clearly aggravated the mischief, so far as that the lions and tigers were His Ma- public opinion was concerned. M. de jesty and the Queen. Louis XVI. was Calonne wrote to Beaumarchais that His already irritated against Beaumarchais Majesty considered his justification comfor getting his play acted against the roy-plete, and would seize with pleasure any al wish, and gaining a triumph where the opportunities for bestowing marks of royal critic had prophesied a fall. He favour. So far, so good; but, surely, it was playing at cards when his brother in- was an ill-chosen mark of favour to order troduced the subject, and, without paus- the attendance of the whole ministry at ing to consider the absurdity of the inter- the first representation of "Figaro" after pretation, wrote in pencil on a seven of the author's discharge from Saint-Lazare ; spades an order for arresting Beaumar- as if for the express purpose of giving chais and confining him in Saint-Lazare, point to the phrase in the dreaded monothen a prison in the nature of a reforma- logue: Ne pouvant avilir l'esprit, on se tory appropriated to young profligates. venge en le maltraitant. Or again, when Considering the age (53) and reputation" Figaro" supposes himself addressing of Beaumarchais - above all, that he had one of these ephemeral potentates so been employed in confidential missions careless of the evil they command." by the Crown-this was, perhaps, the very worst act with which Louis Seize can be personally reproached. It was a blunder of appalling magnitude: placing the monarchy in the worst possible light when its foes were closing round it and hostile eyes were eagerly scrutinizing its weak points. When, on the morning of the 9th March, 1785, the news got abroad that the author of the " Marriage de Figaro" had been arrested the evening before in the middle of his triumph and sent to keep company with the young scapegraces of Saint-Lazare, it was treated as a joke and the first impulse of the Parisian public was to laugh. He was out at Vienna in 1786, with complete success. Rossini's Il Barbiere di Siviglia was first performed in Rome in 1816 or 1817. They are generally regarded as the best specimens of the comic opera; and their popularity is in a great measure due to the situations, the characters, and what has been preserved of the wit. 66 I would tell him that printed follies have no checked; that there is no such thing as flatimportance except where their circulation is tering eulogy without liberty to find fault; and that it is only little men that dread little writings. Even this was not enough. The "Barbier de Séville" was represented at the little theatre of Trianon: the author was invited to be present; and the Queen played "Rosine," the Comte d'Artois Figaro," and the Comte de Vaudreuil Almaviva," &c. 66 We should infer from the distribution of parts that the object of this represen tion was rather the amusement of the royal circle than the indemnification of Beaumarchais, who, in point of fact, never completely shook off the ridicule of his confinement in Saint-Lazare. It was one of those insults which leave a sense of degradation like a blow; and, Had I but fought as wont, one thrust My path no more to cross. sieur le Comte, as I should be under the necessity of breaking with you when your bills fell due, I prefer doing so at once. It is twelve thousand francs in my pocket." Four years afterwards a complete reconciliation was brought about, the first advance being made by Mirabeau, who applied to Beaumarchais to cede the purchase of a house in the Bois de Vincennes, which the great orator, then in the height of his fame, fancied as a retreat. The reply of Beaumarchais, who carried anger as the flint bears fire, begins: "I am going to reply to your letter, Monsieur, with frankness and freedom. I have long been looking out for an opportunity to revenge myself on you. It is offered by yourself, and I avail myself of it with joy." His revenge was a graceful cession of the house, after an explanation of the circumstances which made the act a real sacrifice. ing a prolonged and bitter controversy; in which, reversing his former position, he is condemned by public opinion whilst the courts declare him in the right. He composes an opera "Tarare," which defies all canons of criticism and all theories of art, yet succeeds to the extent of But he did not fight as wont. The avowed aim of his pamphlet in answer was simply The rest of Beaumarchais' life contains to rectify the misstatements and miscal- incidents, speculations, and enterprises, culations of his adversary; but, unluckily, literary, political, and pecuniary, enough he fell into his old manner just enough to compose three or four ordinary biogto inflict a flesh-wound without striking raphies. He has another lawsuit, involvhome. Comparing Mirabeau's pamphlets to the Philippics," he termed them Mirabelles, and intimated a doubt of the purity of the motives which actuated the penman of the money-lenders. Mirabeau's rejoinder was an invective in his most trenchant manner, a genuine Mirabelle, in which he travestied and dis-being the sole object of interest in occufigured the whole life of Beaumarchais under the pretence of reviewing it, and held him up to public scorn in the names of order and morality. It was Satan reproving Sin, assuming everything he said to be true; and probably one reason which kept Beaumarchais quiet, was the consciousness that he could say nothing of Mirabeau that was not well known already, and could gain nothing by hanging up a companion portrait alongside of his own. pied and revolutionary Paris three or four times over. He writes another play, "La Mère Coupable," of which M. de Loménie says: — "Weakly played at first (June, 1792), it had little success; afterwards revived in May, 1797, it completely succeeded; and even now, when it is represented by skilful actors, it produces a lively impression on the public. He built a house and laid out a garden at a cost of between sixty and seventy thousand pounds sterling, which were the He might have made an effective com- plague instead of pride or comfort of mencement by relating the original cause his old age; insomuch as they were at of quarrel. Mirabeau, who was always the same time the wonder of Paris and in want of money and on the look-out the cause of his being marked out for for confiding capitalists, called on Beau- persecution and confiscation as an arismarchais (with whom he was not person-tocrat. He contracted to supply the ally acquainted) as one man of wit and French Government with 60,000 muskets pleasure might call on another; and, to be imported from Holland, then an after an animated colloquy, suddenly, with an affectation of nonchalance, requested the loan of 12,000 francs. Beaumarchais, with equal nonchalance refused. "But it would be easy for you to lend me this sum?"-"No doubt; but, Mon enemy's country. On the strength of this contract he was accused of being in secret correspondence with the royalists, and compelled to take refuge in London, where he was arrested by his English correspondent, and thrown into the King's Bench Prison, till an advance morals, it would be difficult to fix him with made on account of these same muskets one selfish or ungenerous action, with was repaid. He then returned to Paris, anything mean or low in conduct or in and (March, 1793) addressed a memorial thought. Not one of the many imputato Santerre, the dreaded brewer, begin- tions on his probity in money matters ning: "I have come to offer my head to would stick. He was not a great or good the sword of justice if I cannot prove I man, any more than a great or good writer, am a great citizen. Save me, Citizen but his life, like his works, is lighted up Commandant, from pillage and the dag- by a soul or redeeming spirit from within; ger, and I shall again be serviceable to and, taken together, they call up the immy country." age of something higher and better than that of a brilliant, unprincipled adventurer the descriptive phrase it is the received fashion to apply to him. During the Reign of Terror he was a refugee at Hamburg, inscribed on the list of émigrés, from which he could not get his name erased until the accession Inferior in genius to Sheridan (with to power of the Directory, when (July, whom Saint-Marc Girardin suggests a 1796) he returned to Paris to find his parallel), he was superior in every respect house and garden defaced and his affairs to Wilkes, whose conflict, under the in confusion. His politics were much in double disadvantage of a damaged repthe same state as his affairs; and it would utation and a shattered fortune, with the be no easy matter to determine what form of government, or what kind of religion, or irreligion, he preferred. He paid fulsome compliments in bad verse to Napoleon, and wrote some foolish letters in a sceptical sense about Voltaire. Ten days before his death he wrote to Talleyrand, to protest against what he called the "murderous" commission which had decided against his claims on the State. On the 17th of May, being then in his sixty-eighth year, he spent the evening gaily with his family and a few friends. On the morning of the 18th, he was found dead in his bed, and though the palpable cause was apoplexy, a report got about that he had committed suicide with opium. He had described himself just before as Un bon viellard, grand, gris, gros, gras. When the wrecks of his fortune were got together, he was found to have left more than forty thousand pounds sterling, besides claims on France and the United States, and his house; so that there must have been order in his disorder, prudence in his imprudence, and calculation in his extravagance, as well as sound sense at the bottom of his étourderie and real goodness underlying his irregularities. Whilst there is little or nothing to be said in excuse for his folly, vanity, and laxity of About this time he carried or sent to London and deposited with the Abbé Dulau (the founder of the wellknown firm of Dulau & Co., in Soho Square) for safe custody a quantity of manuscripts, including the original copy of the "Barbier de Séville." These were purchased of the firm in 1853 by M. Fournier for the Comédie Française, and have been efficiently employed in perfecting the text of the best edition of the dramatic works of Beaumarchais. See Theatre Complet de Beaumarchais, &c., par G. G. d'Heylle et F. de Marescot. Paris: Académie des Bibliophiles, vol. ii. Appendix. English House of Commons and the min- Beaumar His actions are so blended with his works that it is hardly possible to dissociate the author from the man; and the critics who have tried to classify his writings or say smart things about his style, remind us of Figaro at work on his song: "Je voudrais finir par quelque chose de beau, de brillant, de scintillant, qui eût l'air d'une pensée." Thus Sainte-Beuve: "By mingling the old French wit with the taste of the hour a little (we should say, a great deal) of Rabelais and a little Voltaire, by throwing in a slight Spanish disguise and some rays of the Andalusian sun, he managed to become the most mirth-inspiring and stirring Parisian of his day: the Gil Blas of the Encyclopedic epoch on the eve of the revolutionary." The broad line of demarcation which separated him from the Encyclopedists is indicated by M. Saint-Marc Girardin : "There needed some one to speak loud and clear. Beaumarchais was the man. He took up his contemporaries where Voltaire and Rousseau had left them, and led them farther on. He applied ideas to |