“Paris, this 3rd of May, 1780.
“I have not at once replied, my dear colleague, to your letter because the heat which mounted to my head would not have permitted me to do so with proper moderation. I have passed my entire life in doing my best, to the sweet murmur of reproaches and outrages from those whom I have served; but perhaps nothing ever has hurt me so much as this ... Let others do better, I will congratulate them.... No human consideration can retain me any longer in the following of this very ungrateful, dramatic literary association. I salute, honor and love you.
“I realize in re-reading my scribbling that my head is still hot, but I recommence in vain. I find myself less master of myself than I could wish.”
“Sedaine,” says Loménie, “recognizing that he had been in the wrong, replied by an affectionate letter which proved that
if the author of Le Philosophe sans le Savoir loved gossip, he was at heart an excellent man.”
“Yes, my dear colleague,” he wrote, “your head was still hot when you replied. Perhaps something in my letter hurt you, because the reproaches which I had heard uttered had angered me. I cannot, however, believe that you have taken for my sentiments that which I reported of your ungrateful and unreasonable confrères. Nevertheless, excepting three or four, the rest do us justice, and it is to you that we pass it on. If I said anything which pained you, I very sincerely beg your pardon. It is for you to be moderate, it does you more honor than me, who am older than you. Continue your beautiful and excellent services; finish your work, and do them good in spite of their ingratitude. This affair terminated to our honor by you, I will beg them to assemble at my house and they will order me to join myself to a deputation to go to thank you for all your pains. This is all we can offer you now. They will do it, or I shall separate myself from them for the rest of my life, who have only need of repose and your friendship.
“I embrace you with all my heart, and let us leave the evilly disposed for what they are.”
The debates, however, were not over, for the next ten years the struggle continued with Beaumarchais always in the lead.
“At last,” says Loménie, “the Revolution came to put an end to the old abusive privileges of the Théâtre-Français, and the usurpation of the directors of the theaters of the provinces. Following a petition drawn up by La Harpe, Beaumarchais and Sedaine, representing the society of dramatic authors and under the influence of numerous memoirs published
by Beaumarchais, the National assembly recognized the right of property of authors, suppressed all the privileges of the Comédie-Française, and decreed, on the 13th of January, 1791, that the works of living authors could not be produced anywhere in France without the consent of the authors.... To protect these interests was one of the chief occupations of the old age of Beaumarchais.... To the very end he continued to be the patron of men of letters; one of his last letters was addressed to the Minister of the Interior under the Directory, supporting a petition of the society.”