“‘The comedians of the Comédie-Française are going to present in a few days, a drama of a new kind which all Paris is awaiting with lively impatience. The orders which I gave to the comedians in making them a present of the work, that they should guard the secret of the name of the author, have not been obeyed. In their unfortunate enthusiasm, they believed that they rendered me a service in transgressing my wishes. As this work, child of my sensibility, breathes the love of virtue, and tends to purify our theater and make it a school of good manners, I have felt that I owe a special homage to my illustrious protectresses. I come, therefore, Mesdames, to beg you to listen to a reading of my play. After that, if the public at the representation carries me to the skies, the most beautiful success of my drama will be to have been honored by your tears, as the author has always been by your benefits.’
“With the duke of Noailles, to whom he had read the piece, and who had shown an interest, Beaumarchais poses as a statesman who has missed his calling. The letter to the Duke of Noailles is as follows:
“‘It is only in odd moments, Monsieur le duc, that I dare give way to my taste for literature. When I cease
for one moment to turn the earth and cultivate the garden of my advancement, instantly what I have cleared is covered with brambles so that I must recommence unceasingly. Another of the follies from which I have been forced to tear myself is the study of politics, a subject thorny and repulsive for most men, but quite as attractive as useless for me. I loved it to madness, and I have done everything to develop it, the rights of respective powers, the pretentions of princes, by which the mass of mankind always is kept in commotion, the action and reaction of governments, all these are interests made for my soul. Perhaps there is no one who has felt so much the disadvantage of being able to see things en grand, being at the same time the smallest of men. Sometimes I have gone so far as to murmur in my unjust humor that fate did not place me more advantageously in regard to those things for which I believed myself suited, especially when I consider that the missions which kings and ministers give to their agents, have the power to confer the grace of the ancient apostleship, which instantly made sublime and intelligent men of the most insignificant brains.’”
To the duke of Nivernais, Beaumarchais was indebted for a useful criticism of the weak side of his play. It probably may be due to that nobleman’s observations that he made the important change of transporting the scene to England, and giving the characters English names. As the play now stands, after decided modifications made immediately following the first representations, the story is this:
Eugénie
Eugénie, the daughter of a Welsh gentleman, supposes herself the wife of Lord Clarendon, nephew of the Minister of War. Clarendon, however, basely has deceived her by a false marriage in which his steward plays the rôle of chaplain,
and he prepares to marry a wealthy heiress the very day that his victim arrives in London.
The weakness of the play consists in this, that while the character of Eugénie in its delicate, sweet womanliness, enlists our entire sympathy and admiration, we are not sufficiently prepared at the end of the fifth act to see the man who has so deceived her, pardoned and re-accepted on his giving up his intended marriage along with the ambitious schemes of his powerful uncle, even though the old baron utters the sublime truth that “he who has sincerely repented is farther from evil than he who has never known it.”