Beaumarchais and the War of American Independence, Vol. 2

by Elizabeth Sarah Kite

When Franklin arrived, Deane soon realized that repayment would be very difficult, and dreading to face the effect which the whole truth would have produced, he had begged Beaumarchais to delay sending in his accounts until Congress should have ratified his agreements. This Beaumarchais, with characteristic generosity, readily conceded. De Francy wrote: “You appear still to have the blindest confidence in Deane and you neglect your own interests.... Well, now, on February 16th, when Deane passed the morning with you, they had written to Congress—(I have seen the letter signed by the three agents)—that you got possession of the cargo of the Amphitrite contrary to their expectations, and that they did not oppose it because their political situation did not permit them to come to any explanation with you. They add that they had been informed that you had sent an agent to Congress to solicit the payment of a very considerable debt, but that it was not necessary to settle anything with this agent; that the commercial venture to which it related was a mixed business which it was necessary to sift before closing the account; that they would occupy themselves with the business, and that it was better to leave it with them to arrange with you.

“I will make no reflections upon this transaction; I will only say that it appears to me very extraordinary, an incredible weakness even, that Mr. Deane should have consented to sign what it pleased his colleagues to write, up to the very moment when you had the generosity to sacrifice everything for him and he knew it. You can well imagine, that with such news, doubts are reinforced, objections multiplied, etc., etc.”

Of the recall of Deane, already announced in a previous letter of De Francy, we shall speak at length, in another chapter. For the present let us return to France to follow Beaumarchais in his private career as citizen.

It will be remembered that when, in 1776, the restored parliament had annulled the decree of the parliament Maupeou, Beaumarchais had petitioned the Ministers to obtain for him the adjournment of the final decision in the matter of the suit instituted against him by the Comte de la Blache so many years before. “This suit,” says Loménie (Vol. II, p. 54), “which had been the origin of his tribulation, and of his celebrity, still subsisted, and in the midst of his triumphs held his fortune and his honor in check.... The Count de la Blache, seeing the credit of his adversary so rapidly growing, urged on with all his force the final decision. Beaumarchais was in less haste; occupied in organizing his operations with America, and in reconquering his civil existence, he did not wish to terminate the other case until he had assured himself very well of his position.

“The decisive combat came off at Aix in July, 1778. The author of the Barbier de Séville, accompanied by the faithful Gudin, started for Provence. He was going at the same time to despatch two vessels from Marseilles for the United States and to finish with the most desperate of his enemies.”

“At Marseilles,” says Gudin in his memoir, “Beaumarchais covered the part he played in public affairs, by the veil of amusements or his private business.”

Of the memoirs which he published at Aix, in relation to this important suit, Loménie has said: “They contain passages which are not below the best to be found in the memoirs against Goëzman ... one feels a man who is conscious of his power, who conducts vast operations, who enjoys a great celebrity and who considers his social importance as equal at least to that of a field-marshal.

“The city of Aix seemed predestined to famous lawsuits. In the same place where Mirabeau was soon to come to give forth the first bellowings of his eloquence, was seen to glitter the sparkling fancy of the Barbier de Séville. Vainly, the Count de la Blache surrounded himself with six lawyers, and prepared from very far back his triumph.... At the end of a few days, Beaumarchais had conquered the public.”

“You have completely turned the city,” his attorney said to him. His triumph was complete; a definite decree of Parliament disembarrassed him forever of the Comte de la Blache. The latter was condemned to execute the agreement drawn up and signed, du Verney, 1770.

“The affair,” says Gudin, “was examined with the most scrupulous attention and judged after fifty-nine seances. The legatee, all of whose demands were rejected, was condemned, and his memoirs were suppressed.”