Beaumarchais and the War of American Independence Volume I Part 21

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 Nevertheless they repealed the prohibition to play his _Barbier de S?ville_.?

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 t.i.tle, _Avis ? la branche espagnole sur ses droits ? la couronne de France, ? d?faut d?h?ritiers_ (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.?

[Ill.u.s.tration: Louis XVI]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Marie Antoinette]

?All that was known of this pamphlet,? says Lom?nie, ?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 r?le 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.

?Louis.

Marly, July 10, 1774.?

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 Lom?nie, ?through great supply of eloquence, but also through great supply of money. For 1,400 pounds sterling, the Jew renounced the speculation. The ma.n.u.script 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 Lom?nie 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?oeuvre 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 _? 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 rest.i.tution 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 circ.u.mstances 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 amus.e.m.e.nt 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 sc?ne_, 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 pa.s.sed the night in Nuremberg, and next morning, without waiting to have his wounds dressed, he hastened on to Vienna.

So much for the romance--what follows is authentic history.

In a _proc?s-verbal_, under date of September 7, 1774, held by the Burgomaster of Nuremberg, under order of Marie Th?r?se, 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 a.s.sumed a tone as proud as his own, and a.s.sured 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 circ.u.mstance, 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....?

??But, Monsieur, what necessity had you to change your name??

??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 Th?r?se, 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 p.r.o.nounced 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.?

??Monsieur, an Empress does not make loans.?

??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.

?Caron de Beaumarchais.?

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 a.s.sert 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 doc.u.ments, to prove the fallacy of all their conjectures. (See _Beaumarchais et ses oeuvres_, by E. Lintilhac, Paris, 1889.)

What is, however, of vital importance for the life of Beaumarchais, and above all for the very important r?le 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 pa.s.sed 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.

The song in question begins with the following stanza: