When Beaumarchais arrived in Paris he hastened to Versailles to receive the reward of his activity. He found the old King attacked by a fatal disease, and in a few days he was no more. “I admire,” he wrote the same day, “the strangeness of the fate which follows me. If the King had lived in health eight days longer, I would have been reinstated in the rights which iniquity has taken from me, I had his royal word.”
A few days later he wrote to Morande, “Restored to my family and friends, my affairs are quite as little advanced as before my voyage to England, through the unexpected death of the King. I seize the first instant of repose to write to you and to compliment you, Monsieur, very sincerely
upon your actual condition. Each one of us has done his best; I to tear you from the certain misfortune which menaced you and your friends, and you to prove a return with good faith to the sentiments and conduct of a true Frenchman.... There only remains to me for total recompense the satisfaction of having fulfilled my duty as an honest man and a good citizen.... What consoles me is that the time of intrigue and cabal is over. Restored to my legal defense the new King will not impose silence on my legitimate reclamations; I shall obtain, by force of right, and by title of justice that which the late King was only willing to accord me as a favor.” (Quoted from Lintilhac, Beaumarchais et ses œuvres, p. 62.)
Here as elsewhere, true to the instincts of his nature, he accepted the inevitable, while looking about him to see what remained to be done. Realizing that the service accomplished for Louis XV could have small interest for the virtuous young monarch just ascending the throne, he had no thought for the moment of pressing for his rehabilitation, but preferred to wait until some opportunity offered for making himself useful, and if possible necessary, to the young King.
In November of the same year, he had the satisfaction of seeing the parliament abolished which had degraded him. More than this, his opinion was sought as to the best means to be employed in the re-establishment of the ancient magistracy. Gudin, in his life of Beaumarchais says, “The ministers were divided in opinion as to the best means to employ in recalling the parliaments; they consulted Beaumarchais, and demanded of him a short, elementary memoir, where his principles should be exposed in a way proper to instruct every clear mind.... He obeyed and gave them under the title of—Idées élementaires sur le rappel du parlement—a
memoir, which contains the most just ideas, the purest principles upon the establishment of that body, and the limitations of its powers....” The Ministers, however, did not dare to follow the simplicity of the principles he laid down. After much discussion the parliaments were recalled, and though the liberties of the people received but slight attention, “Everyone was too flattered by the return of the ancient magistracy, to think of the future.”
In the midst of his correspondence with the ministers over this matter of public import, Beaumarchais did not forget his own private interests. He wrote to M. de Sartine, “I have cut out the fangs of three monsters in destroying two libels, and stopping the impression of a third, and in return I have been deceived, robbed, imprisoned, my health is destroyed; but what is that if the King is satisfied? Let him say ‘I am content,’ and I shall be completely so, other recompense I do not wish. The King is already too much surrounded by greedy askers. Let him know that in a corner of Paris he has one disinterested servitor—that is all I ask.
“I hope that you do not wish me to remain blâmé by that vile Parliament which you have just buried under the debris of its dishonor. All Europe has avenged me of its odious and absurd judgment, but that is not enough. There must be a decree to destroy the one pronounced by it. I shall not cease to work for this end, but with the moderation of a man who fears neither intrigue nor injustice. I expect your good offices for this important object.
“Your devoted
Beaumarchais.”
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.