Beaumarchais and the War of American Independence Volume II Part 26

"Citizen Durand was sent back to Citizen Beaumarchais with a revised pa.s.sport, which ran thus; 'to conduct him to his destination and to continue his mission;' because it seemed important to procure the guns for the government at whatever time that should be found possible, and also that the enemy should be prevented from seizing and distributing them in Belgium among the partisans of the house of Austria.

"The department of Paris placed the Citizen Beaumarchais upon the list of _emigres_ and placed seals upon his property.

"The committee decreed that since the Citizen Beaumarchais was on a mission he should not be treated as an _emigre_, because he was absent on a mission for the government. The department removed the seals.

"Some time after, the citizen Beaumarchais was replaced on the list of _emigres_. There had been no new motive. The mission was not finished, his negotiations continued to be useful, he had not been recalled.... However, they persisted in considering him an _emigre_!... the presence of citizen Beaumarchais in a foreign country was necessary up to the moment when the secret of his mission having been divulged, the English carried off the guns from the armory at Tervere to their ports, which they did last year.

"Nothing would then have prevented citizen Beaumarchais from returning to France because he could no longer hope to be able to fulfil his mission; but his name still rested on the list of _emigres_ and he could not return until it was erased.

"It was an injustice ever to have placed it upon the list of _emigres_, since he was absent for the service of the Republic.

"Robert Lindet."

"To the Minister of Police."

This letter and the ardent solicitations of the wife and friends of the proscribed man, finally induced the committee to have his name erased from the list of _emigres_, and so after three years of absence the author of the _Mariage de Figaro_ was able to return to his native land.

CHAPTER XXVI

"_Qu'etais'je donc? Je n'etais que moi, et moi tel que je suis reste, libre au milieu des fers, serein dans les plus grands dangers, faisant tete a tous les orages, menant les affaires d'une main et la guerre de l'autre, paresseux comme un ane et travaillant toujours, en b.u.t.te a mille calomnies, mais, heureux dans mon interieur, n'ayant jamais ete d'aucune coterie, ni literaire, ni politique, ni mystique, n'ayant fait de cour a personne, et partout repousse de tous.... C'est le mystere de ma vie, en vain j'essaie de le resoudre._"

Beaumarchais After His Return from Exile-Takes Up All His Business Activities-Marriage of Eugenie-Her Portrait Drawn by Julie-Beaumarchais's Varied Interests-Correspondence with Bonaparte-Pleads for Lafayette Imprisoned-Death of Beaumarchais-Conclusion.

"On his return to Paris, July 5th, 1796, Beaumarchais," says Lomenie, "found himself faced with a fortune ruined, not alone as so many others had been in the general crisis, but still more, by the confiscation of his revenues, the disappearance of his papers, and of the debts owing to him. His beautiful house was going to destruction, his garden torn up.

While on one hand his debtors had disembarra.s.sed themselves of their obligations by settling with the state in paper money, his creditors were waiting to seize him by the throat. He had accounts to give to, and to demand of the State, who, after confiscating his fortune, held still 745,000 francs deposited by him when he undertook the mission to secure the 60,000 guns...."

Not to go into all the perplexing details of the decisions and counter decisions rendered by the State, the anxieties, the almost insuperable difficulties that surrounded him on every side, let it suffice to say that with old age advancing apace, he still retained almost the same vigor, the same tenacity of purpose, the same indefatigable energy that have characterized him through life. Without ceasing, he drew up memoirs, conferred with the ministers, worked day and night to re-establish his fortune, so that those dear to him might not be left in want.

That he eventually succeeded in this may be judged by the fact that his family continued to inhabit their splendid residence until 1818, when the French government under the Restoration bought it for purposes of public utility. Moreover, the report rendered after his death by his bookkeeper, shows that the fortune which he was able to will his family rose very near the million mark, and this, not counting the debts owing him and lawsuits still pending, notably that with the United States.

But at the moment of his return to France it was not simply with his shattered fortune that Beaumarchais's mind was occupied. During their sojourn at Havre in 1792, the wife and daughter of Beaumarchais had made the acquaintance, says Bonneville, "of a young man of distinguished family, Louis Andre Toussaint Delarue, whose sister, a woman of remarkable intelligence, had married M. Mathias Dumas, a soldier with a very great future, who, after having taken part brilliantly in the war of American Independence as aide-de-camp of Rochambeau, was now Adjutant General of the Army under the orders of Lafayette, and had attached to him his young brother-in-law as _officier d'ordonnance_.... In 1792 they all found themselves waiting in Havre for an opportunity to escape into England."

It was there that M. Delarue met Mlle. Eugenie.... The two young people coming together under these unusual circ.u.mstances soon learned to love one another. His determination to obtain her hand in marriage was not at all affected by the fact that at that moment the entire possessions of her father were lost. Beaumarchais on his return to France, touched by so much constancy and devotion, hastened to a.s.sure the happiness of the young people. "Five days after my arrival," he wrote to a friend, "I made him the beautiful present.... They will at least have bread, but that is all, unless America discharges her debt to me, after twenty years of ingrat.i.tude."

They were married June 15th, 1796, Eugenie being nineteen, and her husband twenty-eight years of age. On the eve of her marriage, the Aunt Julie sketches for a friend the portrait of the young girl, in which she shows her as one in every way worthy of her father's affection-and with a character which, while indicating many contradictory possibilities, had, nevertheless, great charm and lovableness as well as intellectual force. It shows, too, that the terrible experiences through which she had pa.s.sed, had left their trace upon her. Time, however, softened this very complex and somewhat formal young lady. "Dying in 1820 the daughter of the author of the _Mariage de Figaro_," says Lomenie, "left in the hearts of all who knew her, the memory of a person of charming vivacity, of _finesse_ and goodness; loving and cultivating the arts with pa.s.sion, an excellent musician, woman of the world, and at the same time an accomplished mother."

The young man whom she married proved himself in every way worthy of her. In 1789 he was aide-de-camp of General Lafayette, and later held honorable official positions under the empire, the Restoration, and the government of July. In 1840 he was made _marechal de camp de la garde nationiale_, which post he held until 1848 when he resigned, at the age of eighty-four years. "In 1854," writes Lomenie, "he still lives, surrounded in his flourishing old age by the respectful affection of all those who know how to appreciate the n.o.ble qualities of his heart and his character."

But to return to Beaumarchais; hardly had he found himself reunited to his family than he wrote to his faithful Gudin, bidding him return. The Revolution, however, had left this good man so dest.i.tute that he was obliged to request a loan in order to make the journey. This was at once promised. He wrote, August 26, 1796, "I start as soon as I shall have received the ten louis.... My whole heart glows at the thought of finding myself again under the roof with your happy family. And Oh, I shall see you again! How I regret that aerostatic machines are not already perfected.... But any conveyance is good, if it only conducts me to you. Adieu my good friend; keep well. I will write you the moment of my setting out."

Of their meeting, he writes later, "I came from the depths of my retreat to embrace my friend. Meeting after so many years, after so many atrocious events, was it not to be saved from the dangers of shipwreck and to find ourselves upon the rocks? It was in a way like escaping from the tomb, to embrace each other among the dead, after an unhoped for resurrection."

Beaumarchais's activities of this period continued to be the most varied. He entered with interest into the changing fortunes of the republic-which he accepted and over whose future he tried at times to become enthusiastic. In March, 1797, he had written to a friend:

"Yesterday's dinner, my dear Charles, is one that will long remain in my memory because of the precious choice of _convives_ which our friend Dumas [General Mathieu-Dumas, brother-in-law of M. Delarue] had a.s.sembled at the house of his brother. On former occasions when I dined with the great ones of the State, I have been shocked at the a.s.semblage of so many whose birth alone allowed them to be admitted. _Des sots de qualite, des imbeciles en place, des hommes vains de leurs richesses, des jeunes impudents, des coquettes_, etc. If it was not the ark of Noah, it was at least the court of the _Roi Petaut_; but yesterday out of twenty-four persons at table, there was not one whose great personal merit would not have given him a right to his place. It was, I might say, an excellent _extrait_ of the French Republic, and I, who sat silent, regarding them, applied to each the great merit which distinguished him. Here are their names:" And then, after making the inventory, he terminates thus:

"The dinner was instructive, in no way noisy, very agreeable, in a word such as I do not remember to have ever before experienced.

"Caron Beaumarchais."

"Four months later," says Lomenie, "_un coup d'etat_ had proscribed nearly every one of those twenty-four _convives_."

"The deputies of the people," says Gudin, "were taken from their sacred seats, locked up in portable cages like wild beasts, tossed on board vessels and transported to Guyan." This _coup d'etat_ cooled very considerably the republican ardor of Beaumarchais; "He was totally at a loss," continues Gudin, "to understand either the men or their doings; he failed to comprehend anything relative to the forms or the means employed in those times without rule or principle. He called upon reason, which had helped him triumph so many times; reason had become a stranger, she was, if we dare say it, a species of _emigree_ whose name rendered suspicious anyone who invoqued her."

But though Beaumarchais was forced to leave the political revolution to take its course without attempting to change it, his mind ever alert, found innumerable points of contact with the age in which he lived.

"Although afflicted with almost complete deafness we see him," says Lomenie, "rising above his personal preoccupations and the sorrows that a.s.sailed him, to apply his mind with the whole force of his indefatigable ardor to questions of public utility, to literary affairs, and a thousand other incidents foreign to his own interests. Now he points out with indignation, in the journals of the times, the unbelievable negligence which permits the body of Turenne, rescued from the vandalism of the Terror, to remain forgotten and exposed among skeletons of animals in the _Jardin des Plantes_, until he finally brings about a decree of the Directory which puts an end to this scandal; again he writes letters and memoirs upon all subjects of public interest ... now to the government, now to such deputies as Baudin des Ardennes, who represent ideas of moderation and legality.

"He bestirred himself for the agents of rapid locomotion, aided Mr.

Scott in the development of aerostatic machines; celebrated in verse a motor called the _velocifere_, talked literature and the theatre with amiable Collin d'Harleville, or pleaded still with the Minister of the Interior for the rights of dramatic authors against the actors, ... and occupied himself at the same time with having his drama _La Mere Coupable_ brought again before the public."

This drama which had been written immediately preceding the outbreak of the Revolution, had been read and accepted by the Theatre Francais in 1791, but following this, Beaumarchais had been chosen by the a.s.sembly of Dramatic Authors to represent their interests before the _corps legislatif_, which was about to p.r.o.nounce judgment, and he had acquitted himself with so much ardor that a rupture had followed between himself and the Theatre Francais. Another troupe of the neighborhood demanded the play with so much insistence that he allowed them to produce it upon their new theatre; here it was performed for the first time in June, 1792. But the piece was so poorly played that its success was indifferent. During the time of the Revolution its performance was not to be thought of, but it will not be considered surprising that one of Beaumarchais's first concerns, after the settlement of the most pressing of his family affairs, was to have the piece brought again before the public and played at the Comedie Francaise. This was effected in May, 1797. Its complete success brought a great happiness to his declining years.

The characters of _La Mere Coupable_ are the same as those of _Le Barbier_, and _Le Mariage de Figaro_-although from a literary point-of-view it is very far from rivaling the two earlier productions, "the subject," says Lomenie, "taken in itself, is at the same time, very dramatic and of an incontestable morality."

Among the numerous letters, written or received by Beaumarchais in regard to this drama, is one addressed by him to the widow of the last of the Stuarts, the Countess of Albany, who happening to be in Paris in 1791 had begged Beaumarchais to give a reading of _La Mere Coupable_, in her salon. He replied:

"Paris, 5th February, 1791.

"Madame la Comtesse:

"Since you insist absolutely upon hearing my very severe work, I cannot refuse you. But observe that when I wish to laugh, it is _aux eclats_; if I must weep, it is _aux sanglots_. I know nothing between but _l'ennui_. Admit then, anyone you wish Tuesday, only keep away those whose hearts are hard, whose souls are dried, and who feel pity for the sorrows that we find so delicious.... Have a few tender women, some men for whom the heart is not a chimera, and who are not ashamed to weep. I promise you that painful pleasure, and am with respect, Madame la Comtesse, etc.,

"Beaumarchais."

But from his own interests let us turn with him again to those of national importance.

"As ardent an imagination as that of Beaumarchais," says Lomenie, "could not be expected to remain a stranger to the universal enthusiasm which in 1797 was inspired by the youthful conqueror of Italy."

Through the intervention of the General Desaix, Beaumarchais who had celebrated in prose and verse the movements of the young conqueror across the Alps, was able to address a letter to him directly, to which he received the following concise reply:

"Paris, the 11 _germinal_ An VI, March, 1798.

"General Desaix has handed me, citizen, your amiable letter of the 25 _ventose_. I thank you for it. I shall seize with pleasure, any circ.u.mstance which presents itself, to form the acquaintance of the author of _La Mere Coupable_.

"I salute you,

"Bonaparte."

"Thus," says Lomenie, "for the General Bonaparte, Beaumarchais is above all else, the author of _La Mere Coupable_. Can this be an indication of a literary preference for this drama, or a certain political repugnance for the _Mariage de Figaro_, or simply the result of the fact that _La Mere Coupable_ had recently been placed upon the stage? This is a question that seems difficult to answer.

"I find," continues Lomenie, "among the papers confided to me by the family of Beaumarchais, another letter of Bonaparte, at that time first Consul, addressed to Mme. de Beaumarchais after the death of her husband, which is a reply to a pet.i.tion. It reads: