Beaumarchais and the War of American Independence Volume I Part 13

?Marmontel and Sedaine, who were of the company, knowing very well all of the _Com?diens des Italiens_, revealed to us the secret of the disgrace of the _Barbier_. They told us that the princ.i.p.al actor, before showing himself on the stage, had figured, razor in hand in the shops of the wig-makers, and now he did not wish to produce anything which would recall his origin. We laughed, we moralized and it was decided that Beaumarchais should carry his work to the Th??tre-Fran?ais.?

It is this many-sided, this complex character of Beaumarchais which makes him so difficult to understand. Immersed in financial difficulties which would have overwhelmed an ordinary man, we find him composing an immortal dramatic production. Still deeper plunged in distresses, and caught in a net of hara.s.sing circ.u.mstances almost unbelievable, we find him attacking single-handed one of the greatest wrongs of the nation and pulling himself out of a quicksand to be borne in triumph on the shoulders of the people of France.

In 1772, two years before the time of the lawsuit brought by the Comte de la Blache against Beaumarchais, by an arbitrary act of the Chancellor Maupeou under the sanction of the old king Louis XV, the ancient parliaments of the realm had been dissolved and in their place a new one had been set up, called the Parliament Maupeou. From the beginning it met with very bitter opposition. To quote Lom?nie, ?The nation had bowed itself under the glorious scepter of Louis XIV, but that scepter fallen into the hands of Louis XV no longer inspired respect. The spirit of resistance to arbitrary power was general. In the absence of every other guarantee, the parliaments presented themselves as the one barrier which could be opposed to the caprices of a disorderly power, and whatever were the particular vices of those bodies, judicial and political, every time that they resisted the royal will they had with them the sympathy of the public.

?Supported by this, the parliaments saw themselves growing stronger day by day. Closely united the one to the other, they declared themselves ?the members of a single and individual body, inherent in the monarchy, an organ of the nation, essential depository of its liberty, of its interests and of its rights.?

?Every one of their combats with royalty terminated by a victory, until at last a man issuing from their ranks, an audacious and obstinate character, undertook to command or crush them. This man was the Chancellor Maupeou.

?Sustained by Madame du Barry, who dominated the King, the Chancellor issued the edict of December 7th, 1770, which changed the entire organization of the parliaments. The one of Paris protested and repelled the edict. The Chancellor instead of following the ordinary methods dissolved this parliament, confiscated the charges of the magistrates, exiled them and installed a new parliament composed for the most part of members of the Grand Council. The eleven Parliaments of the provinces addressed the most vehement remonstrances; the one in Normandy went so far as to send a decree, declaring the new magistrates intruders, perjurers, traitors, and all the acts null that emanated from that b.a.s.t.a.r.d tribunal.

All the princes of the blood except one refused to recognize the judges installed by Maupeou; thirteen peers adhered to the protestation. The _cour des aides_ protested equally by the eloquent voice of Malesherbes.

The Chancellor resisted the storm, he prevented the dissenting princes from being admitted to court; he broke the _cour des aides_, dissolved in turn all the parliaments of the provinces and replaced them in the midst of an unheard of fermentation. ?It is not a man,? wrote Madame du Deffand, ?it is a devil; everything here is in a disorder of which it is impossible to predict the end; it is chaos, it is the end of the world.?

?To dissolve these ancient and formidable bodies whose existence seemed inseparable from the monarchy and whose suppression delivered France to the r?gime of Turkey or Russia, was truly a very hazardous enterprise.

?The chancellor took care to sweeten and color the act by blending some very important reforms, long desired by the people. Thus the ma.s.s of the people little understanding the gravity of the plan of Maupeou showed themselves indifferent, but the enlightened cla.s.ses of society refused to purchase a few needed reforms at the price of an ignominious servitude and sided unitedly with the destroyed parliaments.

?Very soon followed a deluge of sarcastic pamphlets against the king, against his mistress, against the chancellor, and the new parliament. This last, hastily formed of heterogeneous elements, into which several men but lightly esteemed had been introduced, had not in the beginning found either lawyers, attorneys, or litigants who wished to appear before it.

Nevertheless, Maupeou counting upon the _mobilit? fran?aise_, opposed perseverance to the clamor, and at the end of a year most of the lawyers were tired of keeping silence; under the influence of the celebrated Gerbier and that of the same Caillard whom we have seen so violent against Beaumarchais, they had taken up their functions.

?The dissenting princes demanded to be taken back into favor, the dispossessed magistrates of the dissolved parliaments consented to the liquidation of the charges against them, the pamphlets diminished, and things came back to their ordinary course. Maupeou held himself a.s.sured of triumph and vaunted that he had saved the crown from the registrar.

?But he had deceived himself. When any large part of a nation, honest and intelligent, feels itself wounded in its dignity, though the wound may close in appearance, it does not heal; that which was in the beginning a flame became a smouldering fire, which hidden under the ashes of an apparent non-resistance was in reality but waiting an opportunity to break forth into a devouring element.

?It was reserved for Beaumarchais to fan this into a flame with a suit for fifteen louis, and to destroy both Maupeou and his parliament.?

[Ill.u.s.tration: Madame du Barry]

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

We shall have much to say of this same Go?zman 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 circ.u.mstance, 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 circ.u.mstantial account of the whole proceeding.

When in 1855, M. de Lom?nie 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 S?ville_ had collected with care all the doc.u.ments 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 Lom?nie with occasional touches from Gudin.

CHAPTER VIII

_La Jeunesse--?Y-a-t-il de la justice??_

_Bartholo--?De la justice? C?est bon pour les autres mis?rables, la justice. Je suis ma?tre, moi, pour avoir toujours raison.?_

_Le Barbier de S?ville, Act II, Scene VII._

Beaumarchais and the Duc de Chaulnes--Attempt Upon the Life of Beaumarchais--Same Evening Gives the Promised Reading of the _Barbier de S?ville_--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 M?nard, _femme d?esprit_, where the subject of the comic opera lately composed by Beaumarchais was discussed. It was this same Mademoiselle M?nard who in the words of Lom?nie 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 M?nard was a young and pretty actress, who in June, 1770, had made her d?but with success at the Com?die Italienne. In his _Correspondence litt?raire_, of June, 1770, Baron von Grimme, the great critic of the time, says of her after a rather cold a.n.a.lysis: ?Mademoiselle M?nard 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 wis.h.i.+ng to withdraw from that estate which has degenerated a little from the first n.o.bility of its origin, since Glys?re 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 p.r.o.nunciation, 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 r?les. 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 M?nard 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 Lom?nie, ?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, Lom?nie 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 pa.s.sionately 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 gla.s.s 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 M?nard 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 M?nard found Beaumarchais very agreeable, his friends.h.i.+p turned to fury.

?Frightened by his violence,? says Lom?nie, ?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 M?nard to her home that Beaumarchais wrote the following letter to the duke.

?Monsieur le Duc,

?Mademoiselle M?nard 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 circ.u.mstances 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 n.o.bility 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 M?nard 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 pa.s.s 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 friends.h.i.+p 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 ma.n.u.scripts in the Bibliot?que 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 M?nard 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 friends.h.i.+p for me.? I a.s.sured 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??