Little did Beaumarchais realize the part he was playing in the preparation for that great drama. The gay utterances of his Figaro were the utterances of the mass of the people of France. Through Beaumarchais, the Tiers État was at last finding a voice and rising to self-consciousness; it was rising also to a consciousness of the effete condition of all the upper strata of society. Hence the wild enthusiasm with which these productions were greeted, an enthusiasm in which the aristocracy themselves joined, eager as the populace to laugh, for exactly the same reason as Figaro, so that they might not be obliged to weep.
CHAPTER XIV
“On dit qu’il n’est pas noble aux auteurs de plaider pour le vil intérêt, eux qui se piquent de prétendre à la gloire. On a raison; la gloire est attrayante; mais on oublie que, pour en jouir seulement une année, la nature nous condamne à dîner trois-cents-soixante-cinq fois;... Pourquoi, le fils d’Apollon, l’amant des Muses, incessammant forcé de compter avec son boulanger, négligerait-il de compter avec les comédiens?”
Compte Rendu, par Beaumarchais
Beaumarchais Undertakes to Protect the Rights of Dramatic Authors—Lawsuit with the Comédie-Française—Founder of the First Society of Dramatic Authors—Jealousies Among Themselves Retard Success—National Assembly Grants Decree 1791—Final Form Given by Napoleon.
WHILE Beaumarchais was enjoying the triumph of his Barbier de Séville, his other affairs were by no means neglected.
Very soon we shall have occasion to accompany him to London on one of the most singular missions of which it is possible to conceive. But before entering into a history of the political and financial operations into which Beaumarchais plunged after his return from Vienna, it is necessary to speak of the very important matter which the success of the Barbier emboldened its author to undertake.
As Beaumarchais possessed to such an extraordinary degree the power, as he himself has expressed it, “de fermer le tiroir d’une affaire,” and instantly to turn the whole force of his mind into a totally different channel, we shall not be surprised to find him at one and the same time undertaking to protect the rights of dramatic authors against the comedians of the king; settling for Louis XVI a matter of occult diplomacy of the old king, Louis XV, which had dragged on for years, and which no one else had been able to adjust; working with unremitting zeal for his own rehabilitation as citizen; pursuing the interests of his suit with the Comte de la Blache, which was still in progress; leading a life in London and Paris which from the point of view of pleasure left little to be desired; and all the while engaged in constant and almost superhuman exertions to stir the French government out of its lethargy in regard to the insurgent American colonies, and later in sending the latter aid, under the very eyes of the English, exposed to constant danger of bankruptcy and ruin.