Beaumarchais and the War of American Independence Volume II Part 15

Of the recall of Deane, already announced in a previous letter of De Francy, we shall speak at length, in another chapter. For the present let us return to France to follow Beaumarchais in his private career as citizen.

It will be remembered that when, in 1776, the restored parliament had annulled the decree of the parliament Maupeau, Beaumarchais had pet.i.tioned the Ministers to obtain for him the adjournment of the final decision in the matter of the suit inst.i.tuted against him by the Comte de la Blache so many years before. "This suit," says Lomenie (Vol. II, p. 54), "which had been the origin of his tribulation, and of his celebrity, still subsisted, and in the midst of his triumphs held his fortune and his honor in check.... The Count de la Blache, seeing the credit of his adversary so rapidly growing, urged on with all his force the final decision. Beaumarchais was in less haste; occupied in organizing his operations with America, and in reconquering his civil existence, he did not wish to terminate the other case until he had a.s.sured himself very well of his position.

"The decisive combat came off at Aix in July, 1778. The author of the _Barbier de Seville_, accompanied by the faithful Gudin, started for Provence. He was going at the same time to despatch two vessels from Ma.r.s.eilles for the United States and to finish with the most desperate of his enemies."

"At Ma.r.s.eilles," says Gudin in his memoir, "Beaumarchais covered the part he played in public affairs, by the veil of amus.e.m.e.nts or his private business."

Of the memoirs which he published at Aix, in relation to this important suit, Lomenie has said: "They contain pa.s.sages which are not below the best to be found in the memoirs against Goezman ... one feels a man who is conscious of his power, who conducts vast operations, who enjoys a great celebrity and who considers his social importance as equal at least to that of a field-marshal.

"The city of Aix seemed predestined to famous lawsuits. In the same place where Mirabeau was soon to come to give forth the first bellowings of his eloquence, was seen to glitter the sparkling fancy of the _Barbier de Seville_. Vainly, the Count de la Blache surrounded himself with six lawyers, and prepared from very far back his triumph.... At the end of a few days, Beaumarchais had conquered the public."

"You have completely turned the city," his attorney said to him. His triumph was complete; a definite decree of Parliament disembarra.s.sed him forever of the Comte de la Blache. The latter was condemned to execute the agreement drawn up and signed, du Verney, 1770.

"The affair," says Gudin, "was examined with the most scrupulous attention and judged after fifty-nine seances. The legatee, all of whose demands were rejected, was condemned, and his memoirs were suppressed."

Beaumarchais, in turn, was condemned to pay 1,000 _ecus_ to the poor of Aix as a punishment for the severe witticisms against his antagonist, in which he had indulged in his memoirs. They were also publicly condemned.

Beaumarchais, however, was triumphant. Overwhelmed with joy to find his honor and his fortune restored to him, he desired only that the good people of Aix should rejoice with him. Instead, therefore, of the 1,000 _ecus_ demanded of him, he instantly doubled the sum, requesting that it might be distributed in dowries to twelve or fifteen poor, but worthy young women; the benediction of so many families happily established seeming to him the most beautiful which he could draw upon himself.

"The intoxication of this triumph, after so many years of uncertainty and combat, the enthusiasm with which he was received by the people of Aix," are graphically described by Gudin in a letter written at the moment of his triumph.

"All the city," wrote Gudin, "which subsists on suits, was in a state of the greatest impatience. While the judges deliberated, the doors of the court house were besieged; women, idlers, and those interested, were under the trees of a beautiful avenue not far off. The cafes, which bordered this promenade, were also filled. The Comte de la Blache was in his well lighted salon, which looked out on this avenue. Our friend was in a quarter at some distance away. Night came; at last the doors of the court house opened and these words were heard: 'Beaumarchais has gained;' a thousand voices repeated them, the clapping of hands spread down the avenue. Suddenly the windows and doors of the Comte were closed, the crowd arrived with cries, and acclamations, at the house of my friend; men, women, people who knew him and those who knew him not, embraced him, and congratulated him; this universal joy, the cries and transports overcame him, he burst into tears, and see him, like a great baby, let himself fall fainting into my arms. It was then who could succor him, who with vinegar, who with smelling salts, who with air; but, as he himself has said, the sweet impressions of joy do no harm. He soon returned to himself, and we went together to see and thank the first president.... On returning ... we found the same crowd at the house; tamborines, flutes, violins succeeded before and after supper; all the f.a.gots of the neighborhood were piled up and made a fire of joy.... The mechanics of the place composed a song, and came in a body to sing it under his windows. Every heart took part in his joy, and everyone treated him like a celebrated man, to whose probity, due justice had at length been rendered."

Gudin's enthusiasm for his friend was destined, however, to a singular recompense. Arrived in Paris, he had composed a lengthy epistle to Beaumarchais (Lomenie II, p. 66), which began as follows:

"The severe justice of Parliament has confounded the malice of thy enemies, though they had hoped that the dark art, which a _vile senator_ in unhappy times had made to incline the balance, would surprise the prudence of our true magistrates."

This chef-d'uvre, composed of a hundred or more verses, had been inserted in a copy of _Courrier de l'Europe_, which was published in London, and which had altered the text by putting at the place of the words, "of a _vile senator_"-"_a profane senate_," so that the personal allusion to the judge Goezman was transformed into an allusion to the whole parliament Maupeou. But most of the members of this judicial body had gone back to their places in the grand council, from whence Maupeou had drawn them. Irritated at the triumph of Beaumarchais, and not daring to attack a man so strong in the favor of the public and the confidence of the ministers, "they seized this opportunity of scourging Beaumarchais over the back of his friend."

The latter was absent from Paris, busy with the despatching of vessels from one of the seaports, when, suddenly, a warrant, "issued," says Lomenie, "without the slightest warning, came to surprise the pacific Gudin." As he sat at table one evening with his mother and niece, a letter was handed him, which proved to be from a friend, Mme. Denis, niece of Voltaire. He glanced it through and there read the startling announcement: "You are about to be arrested, and that for verses printed in the _Courrier de l'Europe_. You have not an instant to lose."

"I lost none," wrote Gudin. "Having read the letter, I quitted the table without a word and pa.s.sed into my room, where I hastily dressed myself, and then took refuge at the house of Beaumarchais. I read the letter to Mme. Beaumarchais....

"My first care was to send a messenger to prepare my mother for the strange visit she was about to receive, and bidding her not to alarm herself, and to reply that she did not know where I was, and that it was possible I was with Beaumarchais at a hundred leagues from Paris."

After calling about him several of his friends, men of experience, they deliberated what was to be done. "Do not allow yourself to be taken, these men of the grand council hate Beaumarchais, and are quite capable of revenging themselves upon his friend...."

"I decided therefore to withdraw into the enclosure of the Temple. This castle, ... so scandalously taken by Philipp the Bel from the Templars, and since ceded to the Chevaliers of Malta, was at this time, owing to the privileges of that order, an asylum, not for criminals, but for any person, who, without having given serious offense, found himself in difficulty, as for instance, a debt, a challenge, in a word, an affair like the present. (The Temple, famous for being the stronghold in which a few years later the royal family was imprisoned, and from which Louis XVI was led to execution, was subsequently destroyed by Napoleon. It stood near the present Place de la Republique. Much of its site is now occupied by the _Magasins du Temple_, the great second-hand shops of Paris.)

"The custom was to inscribe one's name upon the bailiff's register on entering the Temple; he asked me why I had come to claim the privileges of the place.

"'Is it debts?'

"'I have none.'

"'An attack?'

"'My enemies, if I have any, have never used any weapon against me except their pen.'

"'A quarrel at cards, or an affair with a woman?'

"'I never play cards, and I have never caused either disorder in a family, nor scandal in a house of joy.'

"'But why then?'

"'For verses, which grave personages do not find to be good, verses printed I don't know how in London, denounced, I don't know why in Paris, and which the grand council, who has not the control of books and is in no way judge of what takes place in England, pretends to be injurious to a tribunal which no longer exists.'"

"Beaumarchais, on his return to Paris, learned of my adventure, and was justly angry. He came and took me from my retreat. 'Be sure,' he said, 'they will not dare to arrest you in my carriage or in my house.'"

"At the end of several days," says Lomenie, "Beaumarchais had succeeded in liberating his friend; nothing could paint better his situation at this period than the tone of his letters to the ministers, especially to the keeper of the seals:

"'Monseigneur,' he wrote, 'I have the honor to address to you the pet.i.tion to the council of the King, of my friend Gudin de la Brenellerie, who unites to the most attractive genius the simplicity of a child, and who, in your quality of protector of the letters of France, you would judge worthy of your protection if he had in addition the honor of being known to you.'"

Beaumarchais thus was able to ignore the smoldering resentment of his enemies and to press forward his vast enterprises. The war had now broken out between France and England. French merchantmen went to sea completely at the mercy of events. The French flag, instead of a protection, was now a signal for attack. It was therefore clear that if Beaumarchais was to continue his mercantile operations, it must be upon a new basis. But before we follow him into the equipping of armed vessels to protect his merchant fleet, let us linger a moment, that we may gain a still nearer view of Beaumarchais, the man.

The popular enthusiasm which everywhere had welcomed the uprising amongst the colonists continued to voice itself in every quarter of France and on all occasions where it was a question of the rights of man. The wild joy which had greeted the triumph of Beaumarchais at Aix was due largely, Gudin tells us, to the fact that for the first time in the annals of that city a n.o.bleman had been so signally humiliated as had been his antagonist. In this general desire for a recognition of human rights, the aristocracy of France themselves took the lead.

Rousseau, calling so loudly for human beings, men and women, to leave the lines marked out for them by authority and tradition and to return to nature as their guide, was heard, not only in the remotest hamlet of the realm, but his voice found echo in its lordly castles and its palace halls. In _Emile_, he traced the revolution which was to take place in the instruction and training of the child; in _La Nouvelle Helose_, he laid down a scheme of morals, the teaching of which was directly opposed to the Christian code. The effect of these teachings upon contemporary France could not be more strikingly exemplified than in the following letter addressed to Beaumarchais by a girl of seventeen. It gives at the same time an idea of the confidence which the name of the latter inspired among the ma.s.ses of the people. The letter is written from Aix and is dated not long after the successful termination of his suit:

"Monsieur:

"A young person crushed under the weight of her anguish, comes to you and seeks consolation. Your soul, which is known, rea.s.sures her for a step which she dares take, and which, were it anyone else, would remain without consequences. But are you not Monsieur de Beaumarchais, and do I not dare hope that you will deign to take my cause and direct the conduct of a young and inexperienced girl? I am myself that unfortunate who comes to lay her sorrows in your bosom; deign to open it to me. Allow yourself to be touched with the recital of my woes.... Ah! if there are hard hearts, yours is not of that number.... Shall I say to you, Monsieur, that I feel in you a more than ordinary confidence? You will not be offended; my heart tells me to follow that which it inspires. It tells me that you will not refuse me your succor.

Yes, you will aid me, you will support despised innocence; I have been abandoned by a man to whom I have sacrificed myself. I avow, with tears that I yielded to love, to sentiment and not to vice.... I enjoyed a certain consideration; it has been taken from me. I am only seventeen, and my reputation is lost already.

With a pure heart and honest inclinations I am despised by everyone. I cannot endure this idea; it overwhelms me and I am in despair.... Ah, Monsieur, lend me your aid, reach out to me your generous hand, cause to spring up in my oppressed soul, hope and consolation. I do not wish to injure the perfidious one who has betrayed me; no, I love him too much. It is at the foot of the throne that I wish to carry my plaint. If you will deign to aid me, I promise myself everything. You have powerful protectors, Monsieur; you know the Ministers, they respect you. Say to them that a young person implores their protection, that she sighs and groans night and day; that she desires only justice.... (The ungrateful one must in the end do me justice.) I can say without presumption that I am not unworthy of his tenderness. He opposes nothing to my happiness but my fortune, which is not sufficient to arrange his affairs, which are not in too good order. He has no aversion to me. There is nothing about me to inspire it. The only crime of which I am culpable is to have loved him too well.

Do not abandon me, Monsieur; I put my destiny in your hands....

If you are kind enough to reply to this, be so good as to address your letter to M. Vitalis, rue de Grand-Horloge, at Aix, and above the address simply to Mlle. Ninon. You will be so good as to pardon me, Monsieur, if I still hide my name.... I know that with you I have nothing to fear, but still a certain fear that I cannot conquer, that I would not know how to define, holds me back. You have connections in Aix; I am very well known here. In small towns one knows everything; you know how they talk. I implore you, do not divulge the confidence which I have taken the liberty of making to you.... Monsieur, I have the honor to be, with sentiments of the most perfect consideration, your very humble and very obedient servant,

"Ninon."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE TEMPLE]

"Let one imagine a similar letter," says Lomenie, "suddenly falling from six hundred miles away, upon a man forty-six years of age, the busiest man of France and Navarre, who had need to confer every morning with the Ministers, who had forty ships on the seas, who pleaded against the comedians, who was preparing a pamphlet against the English Government, who was busy founding a bank, who dreamed of editing Voltaire; surely this man would throw into the waste basket the sorrows of a young and unknown girl. Not in the least. Beaumarchais had time for everything.

Here is his reply to Mlle. Ninon:

"'If you are really, young stranger, the author of the letter which I have received from you, I must conclude that you have as much intelligence as sensibility, but your condition and your sorrows are as well painted in this letter as the service which you expect of me is little. Your heart deceives you when it counsels you an act like the one which you dare conceive; for although your misfortune might secretly interest all sensible persons, its kind is not one whose remedy can be solicited at the foot of the throne. Thus, sweet and interesting Ninon, you should renounce a plan whose futility, your inexperience alone hides from you. But let me see how I can serve you. A half confidence leads to nothing and the true circ.u.mstances of an open avowal might perhaps furnish me the means of seeing how the obstacles may be removed which separate a lover from so charming a girl. But do not forget that in desiring me to keep the matter secret you have told me nothing. If you sincerely believe me the gallant man whom you invoke, you should not hesitate to confide to me your name, that of your lover, his position and yours, his character and the nature of his ambition; also, the difference in your fortunes, which seems to separate you from him.' He next attempts to persuade the young girl to forget a man who has shown himself so unworthy of her regrets. 'Forget him, and may this unhappy experience of yours hold you in guard against similar seductions. But if your heart cannot accept so austere a counsel, open it to me then entirely, that I may see, in studying all the connections, whether I can find some consolation to give you, some view which will be useful and agreeable.

"'I promise you my entire discretion, and I finish without compliment, because the most simple manner is the one that should inspire the most confidence. But hide nothing from me.

'Beaumarchais.'

"Mademoiselle Ninon," continues Lomenie, "asked for nothing better than to unburden her poor heart; she addressed to Beaumarchais an avalanche of letters of which several contain no less than twelve pages; she gave her name, the name of her seducer, and recounts her little romance with a curious mixture of navete, of precocity, sensitiveness, intelligence and garrulity. This _Provencale_ of seventeen is literally saturated with the _Nouvelle Helose_.

"'Fatal house,' she cried, in speaking of the place where she first met her lover, ''tis thou which causes my pains.' She has all its contradictions, ... protesting that if she has left the path of virtue, she has only all the more felt the worth of a pure and virtuous soul.

'Lovely innocence,' she cried, 'have I lost thee? Ah! no, no; I have sounded to the remotest depths of my heart; it is too sensitive, but it is still honest. I implore you, Monsieur, do not believe it corrupt.'

"Whether," continues Lomenie, "these rather wordy dissertations of the little philosopher in skirts gave to Beaumarchais the idea that it would be too difficult to correct such an exalted brain, or whether it was that the work which was crushing him on every side prevented his following this strange correspondence, true it is that he replied no more to the long letters of Mlle. Ninon, although she addressed to him the most melancholy reproaches. But what could he do? The war had just broken out between France and England. Beaumarchais, who had had his own part in bringing about that result, was engaged himself in the conflict; he drew up political memoirs, he armed vessels; where could he find the time to reply to the confidences of Mademoiselle Ninon? Nevertheless it would seem that these letters interested him because he has cla.s.sed them in a package by themselves, upon which he has written with his own hand: 'Letters of Ninon, or affair of my young client, unknown to me.'"