“Beaumarchais, on his return to Paris, learned of my adventure, and was justly angry. He came and took me from my retreat. ‘Be sure,’ he said, ‘they will not dare to arrest you in my carriage or in my house.’”
“At the end of several days,” says Loménie, “Beaumarchais had succeeded in liberating his friend; nothing could paint better his situation at this period than the tone of his letters to the ministers, especially to the keeper of the seals:
“‘Monseigneur,’ he wrote, ‘I have the honor to address to you the petition to the council of the King, of my friend Gudin de la Brenellerie, who unites to the most attractive genius the simplicity of a child, and who, in your quality of protector of the letters of France, you would judge worthy of your protection if he had in addition the honor of being known to you.’”
Beaumarchais thus was able to ignore the smoldering resentment of his enemies and to press forward his vast enterprises. The war had now broken out between France and England. French merchantmen went to sea completely at the mercy of events. The French flag, instead of a protection, was now a signal for attack. It was therefore clear that if Beaumarchais was to continue his mercantile operations, it must be upon a new basis. But before we follow him into the equipping of armed vessels to protect his merchant fleet, let us linger a moment, that we may gain a still nearer view of Beaumarchais, the man.
The popular enthusiasm which everywhere had welcomed the uprising amongst the colonists continued to voice itself in every quarter of France and on all occasions where it was a question of the rights of man. The wild joy which had greeted the triumph of Beaumarchais at Aix was due largely, Gudin tells us, to the fact that for the first time in the annals of that city a nobleman had been so signally humiliated as had been his antagonist. In this general desire for a recognition of human rights, the aristocracy of France themselves took the lead. Rousseau, calling so loudly for human beings, men and women, to leave the lines marked out for them by authority and tradition and to return to nature as their guide, was heard, not only in the remotest hamlet of the realm, but his voice found echo in its lordly castles and its palace halls. In Emile, he traced the revolution which was to take place in the instruction and training of the child; in La Nouvelle Heloïse, he laid down a scheme of morals, the teaching of which was directly opposed to the Christian code. The effect of these teachings upon contemporary France could not be more strikingly exemplified than in the following letter addressed to Beaumarchais by a girl of seventeen. It gives at the same time an idea of the confidence which the name of the latter inspired among the masses of the people. The letter is written from Aix and is dated not long after the successful termination of his suit:
“Monsieur:
“A young person crushed under the weight of her anguish, comes to you and seeks consolation. Your soul, which is known, reassures her for a step which she dares take, and which, were it anyone else, would remain without consequences. But are you not Monsieur de Beaumarchais, and do I not dare hope that you will deign to take my cause and direct the conduct of a young and inexperienced girl? I am myself that unfortunate who comes to lay her sorrows in your bosom; deign to open it to me. Allow yourself to be touched with the recital of my woes.... Ah! if there are hard hearts, yours is not of that number.... Shall I say to you, Monsieur, that I feel in you a more than ordinary confidence? You will not be offended; my heart tells me to follow that which it inspires. It tells me that you will not refuse me your succor. Yes, you will aid me, you will support despised innocence; I have been abandoned by a man to whom I have sacrificed myself. I avow, with tears that I yielded to love, to sentiment and not to vice.... I enjoyed a certain consideration; it has been taken from me. I am only seventeen, and my reputation is lost already. With a pure heart and honest inclinations I am despised by everyone. I cannot endure this idea; it overwhelms me and I am in despair.... Ah, Monsieur, lend me your aid, reach out to me your generous hand, cause to spring up in my oppressed soul, hope and consolation. I do not wish to injure the perfidious one who has betrayed me; no, I love him too much. It is at the foot of the throne that I wish to carry my plaint. If you will deign to aid me, I promise myself everything. You have powerful protectors, Monsieur; you know the Ministers, they respect you. Say to them that a young person implores their protection, that she sighs and groans night and day; that she desires only justice.... (The ungrateful one must in the end do me justice.) I can say without presumption that I am not unworthy of his tenderness. He opposes nothing to my happiness but my fortune, which is not sufficient to arrange his affairs, which are not in too good order. He has no aversion to me. There is nothing about me to inspire it. The only crime of which I am culpable is to have loved him too well. Do not abandon me, Monsieur; I put my destiny in your hands.... If you are kind enough to reply to this, be so good as to address your letter to M. Vitalis, rue de Grand-Horloge, at Aix, and above the address simply to Mlle. Ninon. You will be so good as to pardon me, Monsieur, if I still hide my name.... I know that with you I have nothing to fear, but still a certain fear that I cannot conquer, that I would not know how to define, holds me back. You have connections in Aix; I am very well known here. In small towns one knows everything; you know how they talk. I implore you, do not divulge the confidence which I have taken the liberty of making to you.... Monsieur, I have the honor to be, with sentiments of the most perfect consideration, your very humble and very obedient servant,
“Ninon.”
“Let one imagine a similar letter,” says Loménie, “suddenly falling from six hundred miles away, upon a man forty-six years of age, the busiest man of France and Navarre, who had need to confer every morning with the Ministers, who had forty ships on the seas, who pleaded against the comedians, who was preparing a pamphlet against the English Government, who was busy founding a bank, who dreamed of editing Voltaire; surely this man would throw into the waste basket the sorrows of a young and unknown girl. Not in the least. Beaumarchais had time for everything. Here is his reply to Mlle. Ninon:
“‘If you are really, young stranger, the author of the letter which I have received from you, I must conclude that you have as much intelligence as sensibility, but your condition and your sorrows are as well painted in this letter as the service which you expect of me is little. Your heart deceives you when it counsels you an act like the one which you dare conceive; for although your misfortune might secretly interest all sensible persons, its kind is not one whose remedy can be solicited at the foot of the throne. Thus, sweet and interesting Ninon, you should renounce a plan whose futility, your inexperience alone hides from you. But let me see how I can serve you. A half confidence leads to nothing and the true circumstances of an open avowal might perhaps furnish me the means of seeing how the obstacles may be removed which separate a lover from so charming a girl. But do not forget that in desiring me to keep the matter secret you have told me nothing. If you sincerely believe me the gallant man whom you invoke, you should not hesitate to confide to me your name, that of your lover, his position and yours, his character and the nature of his ambition; also, the difference in your fortunes, which seems to separate you from him.’ He next attempts to persuade the young girl to forget a man who has shown himself so unworthy of her regrets. ‘Forget him, and may this unhappy experience of yours hold you in guard against similar seductions. But if your heart cannot accept so austere a counsel, open it to me then entirely, that I may see, in studying all the connections, whether I can find some consolation to give you, some view which will be useful and agreeable.