In January, 1770, Beaumarchais could easily afford the ill success of his drama, for he was one of the best placed men in France. As we see him at this moment nothing seems lacking to complete his happiness. All his ambitions either are satisfied, or submerged. Of fierce trials, overwhelming calamities, of revolutions, and ignominy worse than death, he had as yet no idea. In 1767, he had written in his preface to his Eugénie, “What does it matter to me, peaceful subject of a monarchial state of the eighteenth century, the revolution of Athens and Rome? Why does the story of the earthquake which has engulfed the city of Lima with all its inhabitants, three thousand miles away, fill me with sorrow, while the judicial murder of Charles committed at the Tower only makes me indignant? It is because the volcano opened in Peru might explode in Paris and bury me in its ruins, while on the other hand I can never apprehend anything in the least similar to the unheard of misfortune which befell the king of England.” This from the pen of Beaumarchais! Beaumarchais, who in 1784 was to produce his famous Mariage de Figaro, of which Napoleon said it was, “The Revolution in action.” Yes the Revolution, but not at all like the Revolution in England whose results were only political, but one which went down to the very foundation of the human soul changing the psychology of every individual man, woman and child in the fair land of France and from thence spreading its influence over the entire civilized world! Here again we have a startling proof of what already has
been advanced, namely that the great actions in the life of Beaumarchais do not come from his own willing or contriving. In the sublime naïveté of his genius he became the instrument of those mysterious forces, so gigantic, which first manifested themselves in France, and whose revolutionary power continues to be felt over the whole world to-day. For the moment, however, his thoughts and interests were all for the restricted circle of his family and friends. He laughed when he thought of the son for whom he was working. But alas, as no happiness had been denied, so no human calamity was to escape him, he must drink his cup of grief and abasement to the dregs.
Already the wife whom he cherished was attacked by a fatal malady which only could end in the grave, the son for whom he worked so gaily was soon to follow her; his property was to be seized, his aged father and dearly loved sister were to be turned adrift. Deprived of his liberty, entangled in the meshes of a criminal lawsuit and under circumstances so desperate that no lawyer could be found bold enough to plead his cause, it was then that the true force and grandeur of his soul were to be made manifest; it was then that he found himself caught on the crest of that giant wave of public opinion now forming itself in France, his petty personal affair was to become the affair of the nation. It was not to be himself as a private individual who opposed his wrongs against despotic power, but the people of France found through him a voice crying aloud for vengeance.
But the time was not yet ripe. Beaumarchais, happy in the bosom of his family, thought only of sweetening the remainder of that life which was perishing in his arms.
Le Jardin du Petit-Trianon
“Before his second marriage, Madam Beaumarchais realizing to the full how difficult it was to see him without loving him,” says Gudin, “and knowing how much he cherished
women in general, said to him, ‘You are a man of honor, promise me that you will never give me cause for jealousy and I will believe you.’ He promised her and kept his word.” Gudin further says, “When she was stricken with a fatal and contagious disease, he was even more assiduous than before in his devotion. Reading in her eyes the fears that devoured her, he sought to dissipate them by his care and that host of little attentions which have so great a price for the hearts which understand each other. She received them with all the more gratitude in that she could not fail to realize that she had lost those charms which had made her attractive, leaving only the memory of what she had been, joined to the sentiments of a pure soul already on the point of escaping from a frail body.
“Father, sisters, all the relatives of Beaumarchais, alarmed at his attachment, trembled lest he too should contract the malady and follow her to the tomb. She died on the 21st of November, 1770, leaving him the one son before mentioned. Her fortune, which had consisted almost entirely of a life income, was cut off with her death.”
Paris du Verney had died the same year. The moment had arrived when the storm so long gathering was about to break. The first part of the career of Beaumarchais was over, the dream of a quiet, peaceful life vanished forever, while stern and unending conflict entered to take its place.