Beaumarchais can better that, though it is a fair sample of his handling. In the second Act, where Bartholo (Pantaloon) has patched up a reconciliation with Rosine (Columbine), whom he intends to marry, he closes the scene like this:
“Bartholo: Puisque la paix est faite, mignonne, donne-moi ta main. Si tu pouvais m’aimer, ah! comme tu serais heureuse!
“Rosine (baissant les yeux): Si vous pouviez me plaire, ah! comme je vous aimerais!
“Bartholo: Je te plairai, je te plairai; quand je te dis que je te plairai! (Il sort.)”
That is very happy, because it has humour as well as wit. Pantaloon and Columbine have become human beings.
It is not all so good as that, and some of it is not good at all. It was written originally for an opera libretto, for which it is well suited. It would do equally well for marionettes. To such things the spectator can lend himself, because in the former the music, and in the latter the puppets, take the responsibility off him; nothing of his own is involved. But in a play the action and the dialogue perform the resolution of life into art, with the audience as accomplice. Human nature is implicated; if we allow the cheap, we must cheat ourselves. If there is any resolution in the Barbier, it is into a jig, and condescension is difficult. Life is only there in so far as some of the personages wear breeches, and some petticoats. It is a mere trifle that the scene is laid in Spain, while all the characters are Italian.
The Mariage de Figaro is a more considerable work, if only because it is much longer and more complicated. Everybody is older, including Beaumarchais. Since the end of the Barbier, Count Almaviva has pursued hundreds of ladies, Rosina has almost left off being jealous, Figaro has become a cynic, and is inclined to give lectures. The romance would seem to have been rubbed off seduction, as you might expect when you consider that the Count has been at it all his life, and is now a middle-aged man, old enough to be Ambassador. It has been said—and Mr. Rivers says it—that Beaumarchais was deliberate in contriving the effect of satiety, which he certainly obtains—as if an author would set himself to work to be wearisome! Subversion, Mr. Rivers thinks, was his aim, moral revolt. He wrote, and it was played, on the eve of the Revolution. Was the Mariage not, therefore, a contributory cause?
“Figaro, soliloquising: Parceque vous êtes un grand seigneur, vous vous croyez un grand génie!... Noblesse, fortune, un rang, des places, tout cela rend si fier! Qu’avez-vous fait pour tant de biens? Vous vous êtes donné la peine de naître, et rien de plus. Du reste, homme assez ordinaire; tandis que moi, morbleu! perdu dans la foule obscure, il m’a fallu déployer plus de science et de calculs pour subsister seulement, qu’on n’en a mis depuis cent ans à gouverner toutes les Espagnes: et vous voulez jouter ...!”
Is that contributory to revolution—or revolution contributory to it? It was surely current coin in 1784. Voltaire and Rousseau had encouraged cats to look at kings; everybody had made fun of the nobility. Titles of honour can have held little intimidation since Louis XIV had had the handling of them, and turned out dukes where his grandfather made marquises. What little there might be left to do had been done handsomely by his grandson. It is far more likely that Beaumarchais was easing grudges of his own, or that in the famous flight of paradoxes aimed at “la politique” he was recalling recent experiences in London and Vienna, where he came into collision with the real thing. Much out of character as it is, it is a good example of what both Figaro and Beaumarchais had become by 1784:
“Feindre ignorer ce qu’on sait, de savoir tout ce qu’on ignore; d’entendre ce qu’on ne comprend pas, de ne point ouïr ce qu’on entend; surtout de pouvoir au delà de ses forces; avoir souvent pour grand secret de cachet qu’il n’y en a point; s’enfermer pour tailler des plumes, et paraître profond quand on n’est, comme on dit, que vide et creux; jouer bien ou mal un personnage; répandre des espions et pensionner des traîtres; amollir des cachets, intercepter des lettres, et tacher d’ennoblir la pauvreté des moyens par l’importance des objets: voilà toute la politique, ou je meure!”
Very brisk. But when Count Almaviva shortly comments, “Ah! c’est l’intrigue que tu définis!” the criticism is final, because it is completely just. Curious that a playwright should light up his Roman candle, and damp it down the next moment. Such speeches imperil the character of Figaro by making him so dominant a personality that there can be no fun in seeing him dupe his betters. Beaumarchais, I think, may have felt that objection, and attempted to restore the balance by having Figaro duped himself in the last act.