“‘How unjust we are! We are jealous of and we hate such and such a one whom we believe happy, who would often give something over, to be in the place of the pedestrian who detests him because of his carrosse. I, for example: could anything be worse than my actual situation? But I am something like the cousin of Héloise, I have done my best to cry; the laugh has to escape from some corner. This is what makes me gentle with you. My philosophy is, to be, if I can, contented with myself and to let the rest go as it pleases God.’
“And at the end, after the honey comes the sting. ‘Pardon, Monsieur, if I have not replied by an express writing to you alone, to answer all the injuries of your memoir, pardon, if, seeing you measure in my heart the somber depths of hell, and, hearing you cry, “Tu dors, Jupiter; à quoi te sert donc ta foudre?” I have replied lightly to so much bombast. Pardon, you were a school boy, no doubt, and you remember that the best blown up balloon needs only the stick of a pin.’”
But it is impossible without becoming wearisome to draw forth all the characters and to allow them to pass in review. Let us turn our attention for a few moments to the sublime invocation of the fourth memoir, and with it a few observations of M. de Sainte-Beuve, taken from his admirable criticism of the memoirs of Beaumarchais in his famous “Causeries de Lundi.”
In this invocation the orator supposes himself to be speaking with God, “that Beneficent Being who watches over all.” The Supreme Being deigns to speak even to him, saying, “I am He who is all. Without me thou didst not exist. I gave
thee thy body, healthy and strong, I placed in it the most active of souls. Thou knowest the profusion with which I have poured sensibility into thy heart, and gaiety into thy character; but, filled as I see thee with the happiness of thinking, of feeling, thou wouldst be too happy if some sorrow did not balance the state of thy fortune, therefore I will overwhelm thee with calamities without number, thou shalt be torn by a thousand enemies, deprived of liberty, of thy property, accused of rapine, of forgery, of imposture, of corruption, of calumny, groaning under the opprobrium of a criminal lawsuit, attacked upon every point of thy existence by absurd, ‘they say’ and tossed about to the scrutiny of public opinion....”
Then he prostrates himself before the Supreme Being accepting his whole destiny and saying, “Being of all Beings, I owe to Thee all things, the happiness of existence, of thinking, of feeling. I believe that Thou hast given us the good we enjoy and the evil we suffer in equal measure; I believe that Thy justice has wisely compensated all things for us and that the variety of pains and pleasures, fears and hopes, is the fresh wind which sets the vessel in motion and causes it to advance upon its way....”
In relation to the above Sainte-Beuve says: “I have wished to cite this fresh and happy image which impresses us like a morning breeze, which in spite of everything reached him across the bars of his prison. This was the true Beaumarchais, truer than he ever painted himself elsewhere.
“In his invocation he continues to address himself humbly to the Supreme Being, begging, since he must have enemies that they be given him according to his choice, with the faults, the stupid and base animosities which he designates, and then with admirable art and vivifying brush, he sketches one after another all his adversaries, giving them an unmistakable
resemblance. ‘If,’ he says, ‘my misfortune must begin by an unforeseen attack by a greedy legatee, for a just debt, for an act founded on the reciprocal esteem and the equity of the contracting parties, accord me for adversary, a man, miserly, unjust and known so to be’—and he designates the Comte de la Blache so vividly that every one has named him already. It is the same for the counsellor Goëzman, for his wife, and for their acolytes, but here his ardent spirit outstrips its bounds, it can no longer be contained—at the end of each secondary portrait the name escapes of itself and this name is an additional comic touch, ‘Supreme Goodness—Give me Marin! Give me Bertrand! Give me Baculard!’
“The whole idea,” says Sainte-Beuve, “the manner of its conception and execution, with so much breadth, superiority of gaiety and irony, all with one stroke, one breath, composes one of the most admirable pieces of eloquence which our oratorical literature can offer.”