Beaumarchais and the War of American Independence Volume II Part 24

However, Gudin tells us, "he had only the choice of dangers. To have refused to procure the arms would have marked him for disfavor. He therefore chose the danger of being useful to his country. This resolution exposed him to the risk of being pillaged and a.s.sa.s.sinated, but in the end it saved his life.... During the days of frenzy which preceded the overthrowing of the throne, the most hostile menaces sounded around his house."

The populace insisted that he had stored it with wheat and guns. In vain Beaumarchais protested, in vain he placarded the walls of his garden with official statements proving that the house had been searched and that nothing had been found. The fury of the mob was not to be appeased.

Finally on the 8th of August, the threatenings became so ominous that he was persuaded to spend the night in the home of a friend, who had sought safety outside Paris, leaving an old domestic alone in charge.

Beaumarchais says:

"At midnight the valet, frightened, came to the room where I was, 'Monsieur,' he said to me, 'get up, the people are searching for you, they are beating the doors down, someone has turned traitor, the house will be pillaged.' ... The frightened man hid in a closet while the mob searched the house." When morning came, he returned to his own home, around which the threatenings still continued without ceasing.

Gudin says: "He received the most alarming notices, and the day after the imprisonment of the king, August 10th, a great mult.i.tude set out in the direction of his house, threatening to break down the iron gates if they were not immediately opened. I and two other persons were with him.

"At first his desire was to open the doors and to speak to the mult.i.tude. But persuaded that secret enemies conducted the crowd, and that he would be a.s.sa.s.sinated before he could open his mouth, we induced him to leave the house by a side entrance.... As we were but four we decided to separate in the hope of deceiving those who sought him....

"Whatever the cause, once admitted and masters of the situation, someone proposed to swear that they would destroy nothing. The populace swore and kept its word. Always extreme, it even swore to hang anyone who stole anything. It visited the whole house, the closets, the granaries, the cellars, and the apartments of the women and my own. They wished to hang my own domestic, who seeing the crowd, ran from room to room with some of my silver hidden in her pocket; they thought she was stealing, and she was forced to call in the other domestics as witnesses. They searched everywhere and found only the gun, hunting case, and sword of the master of the house, these they did not disturb.

"Thirsty from excitement and fatigue, that breathless troop, instead of opening a cask of wine, satisfied itself with water from the fountain.

They even left the master's watch hanging at the head of his bed, and other articles of jewelry about the rooms.... A troup conducted by a magistrate would not have been more exact in its perquisition, or more circ.u.mspect in its conduct.

"Truth here resembles fable,-something extraordinary always mingled itself with the events which came to Beaumarchais. This conduct of the populace was the fruit of the benefits which he had poured upon the poor of his neighborhood. If he had not been loved, if he had not been dear to his domestics, all his goods would have been dissipated by pillage."

The next day Beaumarchais wrote to his daughter in Havre:

"August 12, 1792.

" ... My thoughts turned upon thy mother, and thee and my poor sisters. I said with a sigh, 'My child is safe; my age is advanced; my life is worth very little and this would not accelerate the death by nature but by a few years. But my daughter! Her mother! They are safe? Tears flowed from my eyes.

Consoled by this thought I occupied myself with the last term of life, believing it very near. Then, my head hollow through so much contending emotion, I tried to harden myself and to think of nothing. I watched mechanically the men come and go; I said, 'The moment approaches,' but I thought of it as a man exhausted, whose ideas begin to wander, because for four hours I had been standing in this state of violent emotion which changed into one like death. Then feeling faint, I seated myself on a bank and awaited my fate, without being otherwise alarmed."

"When the crowd had retired," says Gudin in his narrative, "Beaumarchais returned and dined in his home, more astonished to find all undisturbed than he would have been to have seen the whole devastated...."

"And so we continued to live alone in that great habitation, occupied in meditating on the misfortunes of the state and sometimes upon those which menaced us....

"On the 23rd of August, upon awakening I perceived armed men in the streets, sentinels at the doors and under the windows. I hastened to the apartment of my friend-I found him surrounded by sinister men occupied in searching his papers and putting his effects under seal. Tranquil in the midst of them, he directed their operations. When they were through, they took him with them and I was left alone in that vast palace, guarded by _sans culottes_ whose aspect made me doubt whether they were there to conserve the property, or to give the signal for pillage."

Beaumarchais had been carried off to the _mairie_ (police court) "where he defended himself so perfectly," continues Gudin, "that his denouncers were confounded and about to liberate him when Marat denounced him anew.... He was sent to l'Abbaye along with others whose virtues were a t.i.tle of proscription.

"At the end of a week his name was called. General consternation in the prison.

"'You are called for.'

"'By whom?'

"'M. Manuel. Is he your enemy?'

"'I never saw him.' Beaumarchais went out. All the a.s.sembly sat silent.

"'Who is M. Manuel?' demanded Beaumarchais.

"'I am he. I come to save you. Your denouncer, Colmar, is declared culpable-he is in prison-you are free.' ...

"Two days later came the September ma.s.sacres. And thus a second time his life was saved. 'Long afterwards he learned that a woman to whom he had rendered an eminent service had solicited Manuel to obtain the liberty of her benefactor.'" (_Gudin_, p. 430.)

"It would seem natural," says M. de Lomenie, "that in such a moment, the author of the _Mariage de Figaro_ would consent to set aside the matter of the guns and occupy himself with his own personal safety."

He consented, however, to hide himself during the day outside Paris, but every night he returned on foot by byways and across ploughed fields, to urge the ministers to make good the promises of their predecessors and make it possible for him to obtain the sixty-thousand guns from Holland which he had promised the nation.

"The fact was," says Lomenie, "that on the one hand, until those guns were delivered, he remained an object of suspicion to the people, while on the other he believed that the minister Lebrun was trying to exploit the matter to his own credit while leaving to Beaumarchais, if necessary, all the responsibility of failure. This was what rendered him so tenacious, that he tormented even Danton who, by the way, could not help laughing to see a man so badly compromised who should be thinking only of his safety, obstinately returning every night to demand the money which had been promised as a deposit, and to obtain a commission for Holland."

Finally Lebrun consented to give the author of the _Mariage de Figaro_ a pa.s.sport to Holland and promised to have the necessary money ready for him at Havre.

"He set out," says Lintilhac, "on the 22nd of September, 1792, with Gudin, directing himself toward Havre, where, after so many emotions, he wished to press his wife and his daughter in his arms. From there, he pa.s.sed to England where he was arrested, imprisoned, then set free. As soon as Madame de Beaumarchais knew that her husband was safe, she returned to Paris to be nearer, so as to defend his interests. A n.o.ble task which she accomplished at the peril of her life.

"The departure of Beaumarchais, the motive of which remained a secret, emboldened his enemies who renewed their accusations. The 28th of November a second decree was rendered against him as suspected.

Immediately seals were placed upon all the houses which he owned in Paris. Madame de Beaumarchais hastened to protest the accusations against her husband and against the placing of the seals. With great difficulty she finally obtained a decree dated February 10, 1793, which accorded to her husband a delay of two months to present his defense and at the same time the immediate removal of the seals. He wrote from London, December 9, 1792, to his family:

"'My poor wife and thou, my dear daughter. I do not know where you are, nor where to write to you, neither by whom to give you news. Still I learn by the gazette that seals have been placed for the third time on my property and that I am decreed, accused for this miserable affair of the guns of Holland.... Be calm, my wife and my sisters. Dry thy tears, my sweet and tender child!

they trouble the tranquillity of which thy father has need to enlighten the National Convention upon grave subjects which it is important it should know.'"

Beaumarchais returned immediately to France, drew up a memoir for his justification, secured the removal of the seals at Paris; but the munic.i.p.ality of Strausborg maintained those which it had imposed.

Beaumarchais grew impatient, addressed a pet.i.tion to the minister of the interior who sent a dispatch to the administrator of that department of the Bas-Rhein. Again, the author of the _Mariage de Figaro_ is vindicated and absolved.

The troubles of Beaumarchais showed no signs of diminishing either in number or perplexity. In the month of January, 1793, the English government, having joined the coalition against France, was on the point of herself taking possession of the sixty-thousand guns for which Beaumarchais had so long been negotiating.

"He, however," says Lomenie, "did not lose his head, having already had wind of the project. At the very time when he was imprisoned in London he had induced an English merchant ... by means of a large commission ... to become the purchaser of those same guns and to maintain them in his name at Tervere as English property, until the real owner could dispose of them. But the fict.i.tious owner could not hold them long, because the English ministers said to him, 'Either you are the real owner or you are not; if you are, we are ready to pay for them; if you are not, we intend to confiscate them.' ...

"The English merchant remaining faithful to the engagement with Beaumarchais, resisted; affirmed the guns to be his property, invoked his right to dispose of them as he pleased, and this respect for law which distinguishes the English Government above all other governments, left the question undecided. The guns remained at Tervere under guard of an English battleship." (_Lomenie_, Vol. II, p. 424.)

"Things were at this pa.s.s when the committee of public safety informed Beaumarchais that he must secure the arms, or else prevent their falling into the hands of the English; failing which his family and goods in default of his person would answer for the success of the operation."

And so, early in June, 1793, again he left France on this most difficult mission.

"To enter into all the details of his interminable _tours et detours_, going from Amsterdam to Basle, from Basle to Hamburg, from Hamburg to London ... all which he directed like a very ingenious _intrigue de comedie_ ... would be too long. He was able to keep the guns at Tervere and when the moment seemed to him favorable, he supplicated the committee of public safety with loud cries, to order the General Pichegru to come and carry off the guns; but the committee absorbed by a thousand things made no reply.... The only missive he ever received from them was the following, dated, _5 pluviose, An II_ (January 26, 1794), written by Robert Lindet, 'You must be quick, do not await events. If you defer too long, your service will not be appreciated.

Great returns are necessary and they must be prompt. It is of no use to calculate the difficulties, we consider only results and success.'"

"Not only," continues Lomenie, "did the Committee abandon Beaumarchais to himself, but with a thoughtlessness which is another sign of the times, they allowed their agent to be put upon the lists as an _emigre_, which act entailed the confiscation of his property.

"Madame de Beaumarchais went at once to the committee of public safety, explained that her husband was _not_ an _emigre_, since he had left the territory of the republic because of an official mission, and provided with a regular pa.s.sport, and her proof in her hand, she succeeded in having the decree withdrawn and the seals removed from the property.

Beaumarchais had at this time taken refuge in Hamburg.

"He found himself," says Lomenie, "in the most cruel situation both materially and morally. He knew that the revolutionary tribunal was fixed permanently at Paris, that it struck without pity mothers, wives, and daughters of the absent ones, and that the b.l.o.o.d.y knife never ceased to fall. The unfortunate man was in torture. Eugenie tried to comfort her father in the unconscious tranquillity of a young girl. Every precaution had been taken to hide from her the horrible tragedy which was being enacted about her; she presented a striking contrast with the terrible reality of the times.

"She walked alone and melancholy in the lovely garden, while the dismal car pa.s.sed along the terrace perhaps. But in her sad dreaming, she did not turn her head; she admired the earliest advances of spring. On March 11th, she wrote to her father,

"'The verdure of our trees is beginning to appear, the leaves develop from day to day, and flowers already beautify thy garden. It would be very lovely, if we could walk here with thee. Thy presence would add a charm to everything which surrounds us. There is no happiness for me but what thou partakest in. We are only happy through thee, oh my tender father!'"

The very next day measures were taken which ended in the annulling of the decree rendered by the _comite de salut public_ in which the _comite de srete generale_, which had taken its place, once more declared Beaumarchais to be an _emigre_, replaced the seals upon his property, confiscated his revenues and on the 5th of July, 1794, arrested his wife, his two sisters, and his daughter.

They were shut up in the convent of Port-Royal which had been changed into a prison and which, says Lomenie, "by an atrocious irony was called _Port-Libre_, where they waited their turn to mount the fatal cart that should conduct them to the guillotine." The ninth _thermidore_ came to put an end to these butcheries. Eleven days later, another decree of the _comite de srete generale_, again established, gave to the _Citoyennes_ Caron their liberty.

During this frightful period of the terror, Beaumarchais, still at Hamburg, deprived of all communication with his family, was a prey to the most terrible mental agony. His correspondence shows that he had moments of the deepest despair when he asked himself if he were not losing his mind.

"Where shall I address thee?" he wrote his wife. "Under what name? What shall I call thee? Who are thy friends? Whom can I consider mine? Ah, without the hope of saving my daughter, the atrocious guillotine would be sweeter to me than my horrible condition."