Beaumarchais and the War of American Independence, Vol. 2

by Elizabeth Sarah Kite

The mortal remains of Beaumarchais were laid to rest in a sombre avenue of his garden which he himself had prepared. “In planting his garden,” says Gudin, “he had consecrated a spot for his eternal rest.... It was there that we placed him. It was there that his son-in-law, his relatives, his friends, a few men of letters, paid him their last respects, and that Collin d’Harleville read a discourse which I had composed in the overflowing of my sorrow, but which I was not in a condition to pronounce.”

“A beautiful copy of the Fighting Gladiator,” says Lintilhac, “decorated the entrance to the ostentatious mansion where camped la vieillesse militante of Beaumarchais. The posture of the combat, like the face of the gladiator, betrayed a manly agony. What expressive symbol of his life and work!”

In pausing now to cast a backward glance over the achievements of this one man, we scarcely can fail to admit with Lintilhac that Beaumarchais was not boasting when he wrote toward the end of his life: “I am the only Frenchman, perhaps, who never has demanded anything of anyone, and nevertheless, among my great labors, I count with pride, to have contributed more than any other European towards rendering America free.”

That he ever looked upon his work in the cause of American Independence, as his strongest claim to immortality among men, can be judged from his constant return to the subject and especially from what he says in his memoir of self-justification delivered before the Commune of Paris in September, 1789. (Given in Chapter XI.) It may be said that the very persistence of his reclamations in this regard was responsible for the indifference with which they were universally received. A man so rich, so happy, so prosperous, so gay, so universally successful in all his undertakings, could not expect to be taken seriously when he loudly decried the universal ingratitude of mankind, even though his accusations might be just. What Beaumarchais essentially lacked, as La Harpe has pointed out, was above everything else, measure and good taste. He was too ostentatious, too expansive, talked too much of himself, pushed himself forward with too much noise, was too brilliant, too daring, too successful; and yet, as M. de Loménie has said in the remarkable résumé of the character of Beaumarchais given at the end of his work: “It does not seem to us possible to contest the fact that Beaumarchais is one of those men who gains the most by being seen at close range and that he is worth infinitely more than his reputation.” And the same author continues:

“Beaumarchais had implacable enemies; but one very important point is to be noted, namely that all those who attacked him with fury either knew him very little, or did not know him at all; while those who lived intimately with him loved him passionately. All the literary men who knew him in life, and who spoke of him after his death, have spoken with affection and esteem. Two minds as different as those of La Harpe and Arnault meet, in regard to him, with the same expressions of sympathy, and I have not found a trace in all the papers left after his death of a single man who, after knowing him intimately, became his enemy. On the contrary, I constantly have found testimonials of attachment that are far from common. I have found that friendships, begun in his youth, when he was a simple watchmaker, or contrôleur of the house of the king, follow him for thirty or forty years without ever changing or weakening, but on the contrary, redouble in intensity and manifest themselves in the greatest tenderness, and in the most disinterested ways....

“The goodness of the author of the Mariage de Figaro, extended not only to those about him. Gudin affirms that M. Goëzman fallen into misery was succored by him; that Baculard was on his register for 3,600 frs. which were never returned.

“A charming trait of his character often has been remarked, in relation to the inscription engraved upon the collar of his little dog, which was as follows:—‘I am Mlle. Follette; Beaumarchais belongs to me. We live on the Boulevard.’

“We can therefore say with La Harpe and Arnault who knew him, that although the author of the Mariage de Figaro, was followed all his life by black calumnies, he resembled in nothing the portrait which his enemies have left us of him. It is true that his good qualities are often somewhat veiled by légèreté d’esprit and défaut de tenue. His friend d’Atilly painted him to nature, when he said, ‘he has the heart of an honest man, but he often has the tone of a bohemian.’ The frivolity of the century in which he lived had too much colored his ideas ... and indeed equitably to judge the character of the man in its entirety, one must not forget either the situation in which he found himself, or the century in which he lived.”

Louis de Loménie wrote in 1854, more than half a century after the death of Beaumarchais. Since the appearance of his work, many others have taken up the pen to discuss the pros and cons of this many-sided character. The last of these, M. Eugène Lintilhac, calls attention to the crowd of obliges from the scepter to the shepherd’s crook. “What man in need,” he says, “great lord or modest author, ever came and knocked at his door, without carrying away consolation in words and species? To how many oppressed, mulattos, slaves, Jews, protestants has he not held the hand?”

Sainte-Beuve says somewhere, that the Society of Dramatic Authors should never assemble without saluting the bust of Beaumarchais. It can do so henceforward because they have placed in the hall where their meetings are held, a marble bust of its founder.