The embroglio thickens. Although Bartholo is constantly on his guard and suspicious of everyone, especially of Figaro, the latter succeeds in getting the key to Rosine’s lattice from the old man’s possession, almost under his very eyes, and then shows it to him, but at a moment when Bartholo is too much taken up with watching the new music teacher to notice the key, or the gesture of Figaro.
In the end, it is by the very means which Bartholo has taken to outwit the others, that the count succeeds in replacing him by the side of Rosine, and leading her before the notary, who arrives, after he has been sent for by Doctor Bartholo. The ceremony is concluded, as the doctor arrives on the scene. The fury of the latter is appeased, however, when he learns that he may keep the fortune of Rosine, while the count leads her off triumphant, happy in the “sweet consciousness of being loved for himself.”
It is to be sure an old, old story, but made into something quite new by the genius of the author. The situation of Basile in the third act, as already described, is absolutely without precedent, while numerous other scenes offer a comique difficult to surpass.
“The style lends wings to the action,” says Lintilhac, “and is so full and keen that the prose rings almost like poetry while his phrases have become proverbs.”
Perhaps the most remarkable passage of the whole play
is that upon slander, which Beaumarchais puts into the mouth of Basile,
“Slander, sir! You scarcely know what you are disdaining. I have seen the best of men almost crushed under it. Believe me, there is no stupid calumny, no horror, not an absurd story that one cannot fasten upon the idle people of a great city if one only begins properly, and we have such clever folks!
“First comes a slight rumor, skimming the ground like a swallow before the storm, pianissimo, it murmurs and is gone, sowing behind its empoisoned traits.
“Some mouth takes it up, and piano, piano, it slips adroitly into the ear. The evil is done, it germinates, it grows, it flourishes, it makes its way, and rinforzando, from mouth to mouth it speeds onward; then suddenly, no one knows how, you see slander, erecting itself, hiss, swell, and grow big as you gaze. It darts forward, whirls, envelops, tears up, drags after it, thunders and becomes a general cry; a public crescendo, a universal chorus of hatred and proscription.”
The Barbier de Séville had gone through thirteen presentations when the time arrived for the closing of the theater for the three weeks before Easter. It was a time-honored custom on this occasion for one of the actors to come forward after the last performance was over, and deliver a discourse which was called the compliment de clôture. “Beaumarchais,” says Loménie, “lover of innovation in everything, had the idea of replacing this ordinarily majestic discourse by a sort of proverb of one act, which should be played in the costumes of the Barbier.” In explaining the composition of the proverb he says further, “It has not been sufficient for Beaumarchais to restore to the Théâtre-Français some of the vivid gaiety of the olden time,—he