“‘Eh, my friend,’ he replied, ‘should I lose the time which I pass with you in recalling the things which would only afflict your spirit and mine. I try to forget the folly of those about me, and to think only of what is good and useful; we have so many things to say to each other, that such topics should never find a place in our conversation.’
“And in fact there scarcely passed a day when we did not express our pity for the sterility of spirit and the dryness of heart of the many people who have nothing to say unless they talk scandal.
“Beaumarchais was at this time secretary to the king, lieutenant-general of the preserves of the king and enjoyed an income of from 15 to 20 thousand francs a year. He thought of nothing but to make use of his own talents, to cultivate his friends, music, and the theater. I see by a letter to the Duchess de —— that he was already forming a project for enlarging the range of the drama, so as to give to the French scene more variety and interest. These objects alone occupied him when I made his acquaintance.
“The suit in which he was engaged in the first place, gave him no disquietude, he believed that he could not lose it, but this suit was to be the stumbling block which was to destroy his happiness, to tear from him the possibility of disposing of himself according to his own will, or to live as his taste
dictated.
“It precipitated him into a succession of events which never permitted him for a moment to enter into the tranquil career which he had proposed for himself. His life so fitted for pleasure and the beaux-arts became a combat which never ceased. It is thus that events often dispose of men in spite of themselves.
“During the delay accorded by law and which circumstances required, Beaumarchais composed a comic opera, which he ornamented with couplets to the Spanish and Italian airs which he had brought back with him from Madrid. He read the piece to the Comedians of the so-called Italiens, who were in possession of the right to play this kind of production. That evening, supping with Mademoiselle M——, femme d’esprit, whom we shall see later, in an assembly of several men of rank, Beaumarchais told us that his piece had been refused by the theater of Souz.
“We congratulated him, we knew his piece, we assured him the comedians of the Théâtre-Français would be more sensible, that he would only lose the couplets, and that the Barbier de Séville would have more success at the theater of Molière than at the Harlequin.
“Marmontel and Sedaine, who were of the company, knowing very well all of the Comédiens des Italiens, revealed to us the secret of the disgrace of the Barbier. They told us that the principal actor, before showing himself on the stage, had figured, razor in hand in the shops of the wig-makers, and now he did not wish to produce anything which would recall his origin. We laughed, we moralized and it was decided that Beaumarchais should carry his work to the Théâtre-Français.”
It is this many-sided, this complex character of Beaumarchais which makes him so difficult to understand. Immersed