“The letter,” says Beaumarchais, “was garlanded with as
many signatures as the memorandum had not.”
Assuming that it was their ignorance of affairs that caused the disorder, he undertook to give, in his own inimitable way, a lesson in bookkeeping. The letter begins as follows:
“In reading, Messieurs, the obliging letter with which you have just honored me, signed by a number among you, I am confirmed in the idea that you are very honest people, and very much disposed to do justice to authors; but that it is with you, as with all men who are more versed in the agreeable arts than in the exact sciences, and who make phantoms of the embarrassing methods of calculation, which the simplest arithmetician would solve without difficulty.”
Then follows the lesson. The letter ends with, “Eh, believe me, Messieurs, give no more côtes mal taillées to men of letters; too proud to receive favors, they are often too much in distress to endure losses.
“So long as you do not adopt the method of an exact account unknown only to yourselves, you will have the annoyance of being reproached with a pretended system of usurpation over men of letters which is surely not in the mind of any one of you.
“Pardon that I take the liberty of rectifying your ideas, but it is necessary to come to an understanding; and as you seemed to me in your letter embarrassed to give an exact form to a simple account, I have permitted myself to propose to you an easy method, capable of being understood by the simplest accountant.
“Two words, Messieurs, enclose the whole of the present question; if the account which I returned is not just, rectify it. If you believe it to be exact, certify it; this is the way we must proceed in all matters of business.”
“The actors,” says Loménie, “did not relish this lesson in
accounts given with so much complaisance and politeness. They replied that they would assemble the lawyers forming the council of the Comédie and name four commissioners from their body to examine the case.”