Beaumarchais and the War of American Independence, Vol. 2

by Elizabeth Sarah Kite

He consented, however, to hide himself during the day outside Paris, but every night he returned on foot by byways and across ploughed fields, to urge the ministers to make good the promises of their predecessors and make it possible for him to obtain the sixty-thousand guns from Holland which he had promised the nation.

“The fact was,” says Loménie, “that on the one hand, until those guns were delivered, he remained an object of suspicion to the people, while on the other he believed that the minister Lebrun was trying to exploit the matter to his own credit while leaving to Beaumarchais, if necessary, all the responsibility of failure. This was what rendered him so tenacious, that he tormented even Danton who, by the way, could not help laughing to see a man so badly compromised who should be thinking only of his safety, obstinately returning every night to demand the money which had been promised as a deposit, and to obtain a commission for Holland.”

Finally Lebrun consented to give the author of the Mariage de Figaro a passport to Holland and promised to have the necessary money ready for him at Havre.

“He set out,” says Lintilhac, “on the 22nd of September, 1792, with Gudin, directing himself toward Havre, where, after so many emotions, he wished to press his wife and his daughter in his arms. From there, he passed to England where he was arrested, imprisoned, then set free. As soon as Madame de Beaumarchais knew that her husband was safe, she returned to Paris to be nearer, so as to defend his interests. A noble task which she accomplished at the peril of her life.

“The departure of Beaumarchais, the motive of which remained a secret, emboldened his enemies who renewed their accusations. The 28th of November a second decree was rendered against him as suspected. Immediately seals were placed upon all the houses which he owned in Paris. Madame de Beaumarchais hastened to protest the accusations against her husband and against the placing of the seals. With great difficulty she finally obtained a decree dated February 10, 1793, which accorded to her husband a delay of two months to present his defense and at the same time the immediate removal of the seals. He wrote from London, December 9, 1792, to his family:

“‘My poor wife and thou, my dear daughter. I do not know where you are, nor where to write to you, neither by whom to give you news. Still I learn by the gazette that seals have been placed for the third time on my property and that I am decreed, accused for this miserable affair of the guns of Holland.... Be calm, my wife and my sisters. Dry thy tears, my sweet and tender child! they trouble the tranquillity of which thy father has need to enlighten the National Convention upon grave subjects which it is important it should know.’”

Beaumarchais returned immediately to France, drew up a memoir for his justification, secured the removal of the seals at Paris; but the municipality of Strausborg maintained those which it had imposed. Beaumarchais grew impatient, addressed a petition to the minister of the interior who sent a dispatch to the administrator of that department of the Bas-Rhein. Again, the author of the Mariage de Figaro is vindicated and absolved.

The troubles of Beaumarchais showed no signs of diminishing either in number or perplexity. In the month of January, 1793, the English government, having joined the coalition against France, was on the point of herself taking possession of the sixty-thousand guns for which Beaumarchais had so long been negotiating.

“He, however,” says Loménie, “did not lose his head, having already had wind of the project. At the very time when he was imprisoned in London he had induced an English merchant ... by means of a large commission ... to become the purchaser of those same guns and to maintain them in his name at Tervère as English property, until the real owner could dispose of them. But the fictitious owner could not hold them long, because the English ministers said to him, ‘Either you are the real owner or you are not; if you are, we are ready to pay for them; if you are not, we intend to confiscate them.’...

“The English merchant remaining faithful to the engagement with Beaumarchais, resisted; affirmed the guns to be his property, invoked his right to dispose of them as he pleased, and this respect for law which distinguishes the English Government above all other governments, left the question undecided. The guns remained at Tervère under guard of an English battleship.” (Loménie, Vol. II, p. 424.)