He came home in 1765. After his return, he appeared, in 1767, as a playwright, making his début in one of those heavy and tearful dramas in the unfortunate style of Diderot’s ‘Natural Son.’ No one reads or acts ‘Eugénie’ now; but when the adaptable Caron had shortened and altered it, it mildly pleased the playgoing Parisians for a few evenings.
In 1768, Beaumarchais married another widow, Madame Lévêque, having abandoned Pauline, or having been abandoned by her on the score of his mercenariness. Madame Lévêque was rich and young, and when she suddenly died three years later there were not wanting envious enemies to accuse this aspiring Caron of having poisoned both his wives. The fact that their deaths left him the poorer might have exonerated him, if his own character did not; but, as Voltaire said—Voltaire, who was watching his rise in the world with a keen interest, and who rarely made a mistake in judging human nature—‘A quick, impetuous, passionate man like Beaumarchais gives a wife a blow, or even two wives two blows, but he does not poison them.’
It may be noted, moreover, that all the women who touched his life adored this Caron. He was so handsome and good-natured and successful! A little selfish certainly; but some women seem to love that quality in a man—it gives them so great a scope for denying themselves. And then he was always so brave and gay!
His success now deserted him for a little while. He offended the King by suggesting a mot with a meaning—Figaro, it seems, was getting apt in them already—which a duke gave forth at one of the little suppers of Madame Dubarry and which displeased his Majesty, who, to be sure, had reason to dread hidden meanings.
Then came the affair Goezman.
In 1770 Duverney died, and Beaumarchais immediately quarrelled with his heir, the Comte de la Blache, and plunged into a lawsuit over a sum of fifteen thousand francs. Beaumarchais won the first move in the game. But unluckily he had more than one iron in the fire just then. He fell out fiercely with the Duc de Chaulnes over a Mademoiselle Mesnard, with the result that the Duke was clapped into a fortress, and Beaumarchais into the prison of For-l’Évêque. La Blache seized his opportunity, brought his lawsuit before the Parliament of Paris, represented dumb and imprisoned Beaumarchais as the greatest scoundrel unhanged, won his cause, seized Beaumarchais’ furniture, and entirely ruined him.
Beaumarchais seldom lost his coolness and courage, and he did not lose them now. While in For-l’Évêque he had been let out on leave three or four times. He had taken these chances to try to win over to his side Goezman, who was Judge-Reporter in the lawsuit with la Blache, and a most unfavourable judge to Beaumarchais. By the simple and time-honoured expedient of handsome bribes to the wife, Beaumarchais attempted to gain the husband’s good will. Madame Goezman perfectly understands that, should Beaumarchais lose his cause, she is to return his gifts of a watch set in diamonds, and of money. The cause is lost. She returns the watch and money, save only a certain fifteen louis, to which, for some absurd raisonnement de femme, she considers herself entitled, and with which she will by no means part. Then Councillor Goezman comes forward and accuses M. de Beaumarchais of seeking to corrupt his integrity.
This ridiculous situation Beaumarchais seized as a golden opportunity to restore his credit before the world, to dazzle it with his wit, to entice it with his audacity, and to make it own him the man of matchless cleverness he was. He appealed to public opinion, nominally to judge between himself and Goezman, in reality to judge between him, Goezman, la Blache, the Paris Parliament, and all his enemies and rivals whomsoever, in four famous Memoirs, which divided Paris into two hostile camps and fixed on him the delighted attention of Europe.
Except by name, and for a brilliant quotation here and there, few people know the Goezman Memoirs now. But in fire, wit, and irony, they are little, if at all, inferior to the comedies by which Beaumarchais lives. In both are the same gay surprises of situation, banter and mockery, parry and thrust—every page as light and elusive as thistledown borne on a summer breeze. Their cleverness gained him the admiration not only of a senile King, but of Voltaire as well. Old Ferney declared he had never been so much amused in his life. ‘What a man!’ he wrote to d’Alembert. ‘He has all the qualities;’ and again, ‘Don’t tell me he has poisoned his wife, he is much too lively and amusing for that.’
Madame Dubarry had charades acted in her apartment, in which an interview between Beaumarchais and Madame Goezman was represented on the stage. The Memoirs were read aloud in the cafés. Of the Fourth, six thousand copies were sold in a single day. Horace Walpole delighted in them. Madame du Deffand gossiped of them. Bernardin de Saint-Pierre prophesied for Beaumarchais the reputation of Molière.