?I have the honor to be, etc.
?Beaumarchais.?
To which La Harpe replied:
?It is absolutely impossible, Monsieur, ever to find myself with two men whose works and whose persons I equally despise; one of them, Dorat, insulted me personally ... and the other is an unsociable and ferocious madman whom no one sees, and who is always ready to fight for his verses.
You feel, Monsieur, that this means to fight for nothing. I cannot conceive how you can cla.s.s these among _les plus honn?tes gens de la litt?rature_.
?I beg you to accept my excuses, and my sincere regrets. I take very little account of quarrels where _amour-propre_ alone is concerned, but I never forget real offenses.
?I have the honor to be ... etc.
?La Harpe.?
?It was necessary to get on without La Harpe,? says Lom?nie, ?at least for this first meeting, because I see by another note of his that at the next meeting, where Beaumarchais no doubt sacrificed to the irascible academician on that day Dorat and Sauvigny, for he accepted the invitation for dinner and wrote in a more joyful tone.
??Your invitation leading me to suppose that the obstacles which kept me away no longer exist, I willingly consent to join you towards five o?clock. It is not that I renounce the pleasure of finding myself, gla.s.s in hand, with a man as amiable as you, Monsieur, but you are of too good company not to have supper and I admit that it is my favorite repast; thus I say with Horace, ?_Arcesse vel imperium fer._?
??I have the honor to be--etc.
La Harpe.??
On the third of July, 1777, twenty-three dramatic authors found themselves gathered together around the table of Beaumarchais. If several had absented themselves from personal jealousies, others had stayed away through indifference. Coll?, _homme spirituel_ and author famous in his time, replied in a letter flattering to Beaumarchais but refusing all partic.i.p.ation in the work of the society. Absent at that time from Paris, he wrote, ?I avow, Monsieur, with my ordinary frankness that even had I been in Paris I should not have had the honor of finding myself at your a.s.sembly of MM. the dramatic authors. I am old and disgusted to the point of nausea with that _troupe royale_. For three years I have seen neither _com?diens_ nor _com?diennes_.
_De tous ces gens-l?
J?en ai jusque-l?._
I do not any the less, Monsieur, desire the accomplishment of your project, but permit me to limit myself to wishing you success, of which I would very much doubt if you were not at the head of the enterprise, which has all the difficulties which you can desire because you have proved to the public, Monsieur, that nothing is impossible to you. I have always thought that you disliked that which was easy.
?I have the honor to be, etc.
Coll?.?
A second invitation had no better success. The old poet answers in the same vein, ?M. Coll? thanks M. de Beaumarchais for his remembrance. He begs him anew to be so good as to receive his excuses for the affair of the comedians. He is too old to bother himself with it. Like the rat in the fable, he has retired into his Holland cheese and it is not likely that he will come out to make the world go otherwise than she is going.
For fifteen years he has been saying of the impolite and disobliging proceedings of the comedians, that verse of Piron in _Callisth?ne_, ?From excess of contempt I have become peaceable. _A force de m?pris je me trouve paisible._?
?M. Coll? compliments M. de Beaumarchais a thousand and a thousand times.?
Diderot, the founder of the new school of literature, also refused his concurrence.
?_Vous voil?_, Monsieur,? he wrote, ?at the head of an insurgence of dramatic poets against the comedians ... I have partic.i.p.ated in none of these things and it will be possible to partic.i.p.ate in none that are to follow. I pa.s.s my life in the country, almost as much a stranger to the affairs of the city as forgotten of its inhabitants. Permit me to limit myself to desires for your success. While you are fighting, I will hold my arms elevated to heaven, upon the mountains of Meudon. May those who devote themselves to the theater owe to you their independence, but to speak truly I fear that it will be more difficult to conquer a troup of comedians than a parliament. Ridicule does not have here the same force.
No matter, your attempt will be none the less just and none the less honest. I salute and I embrace you. You know the sentiments of esteem with which I have been for a long time, Monsieur, yours, etc.
?Diderot.?
Most of the authors had responded with enthusiasm to the appeal of Beaumarchais. A few lines from a letter of Chamfort will serve to show the spirit which animated many of them.
He says, ?One can flatter one?s self that your _esprit_, your activity and intelligence will find a way to remedy the princ.i.p.al abuses which must necessarily ruin dramatic literature in France. It will be rendering a veritable service to the nation and join once more your name to a remarkable epoch.... I hope, Monsieur, that the _?tats-g?n?raux de l?art dramatique_, which to-morrow is to come together at your house, will not meet with the same destiny as other states-general, that of seeing all our miseries without being able to remedy any. However it be, I firmly believe that if you do not succeed, we must renounce all hope of reform. For myself, I shall have at least gained the advantage of forming a closer bond with a man of so much merit, whom the hazards of society have not permitted me to meet as often as I should have desired.
?I have the honor to be, etc.
Chamfort.?
?After the dinner,? says Lom?nie, ?they proceeded to the election of four commissioners charged to defend the interests of the society, and to work in its name at the new regulations demanded by the duke of Duras.
Beaumarchais, originator of the enterprise, naturally was chosen first.
Two Academedians, Saurin and Marmontel, were joined to him, and besides them Sedaine, who, without being yet a member of the Academy, enjoyed a very justly acquired reputation.
?This a.s.sembly of _insurgents_, to use the term of Diderot, recalled in a way the group of colonies who just one year before at the same time of the year, had declared their independence, but it was easier to conquer the English than the comedians.
?These latter, learning of the action of the authors, a.s.sembled on their side, called to their aid four or five lawyers, and prepared to make a vigorous resistance.?
In very truth the troubles of Beaumarchais were only beginning, nor did these troubles come from the comedians alone; after the first few meetings complete discord reigned among the authors themselves, so much so that anyone but Beaumarchais would have given up in despair. The details of this disheartening undertaking have been given fully in the _Compte rendu_, published with the works of Beaumarchais. They have interest for us only so far as they reveal the character of this many-sided man.
Overwhelmed with enterprises of every sort, with losses and disasters that from time to time brought him to the verge of ruin, he still maintained the cause of men of letters with unfaltering perseverance, and this notwithstanding the bickerings, the petty jealousies, the ingrat.i.tude of the most interested in the result of the undertaking. Those appointed joint-commissioners with him left to him all the work. When anything went wrong all the blame fell back on his shoulders; nevertheless, with his usual philosophy he forgave and forgot everything but the end which he kept constantly in view.
At last, in the spring of 1780, a sort of arrangement was reached which was indeed an improvement on the regulations of the past, though still far from satisfactory.
In honor of the reconciliation, authors and comedians were invited to dine together at the house of the man who for so long had been trying to bring peace between them. It was not long before a rumor was afloat that Beaumarchais had gone over to the side of the comedians. His colleague, Sedaine, hastened to inform him in a thoughtless fashion of the reproaches which were being made by some of those for whom he had sacrificed so much of his repose. The tone of the letter of Sedaine was light and flippant.
Beaumarchais, hurt to the quick, replied in the following words:
?Paris, this 3rd of May, 1780.
?I have not at once replied, my dear colleague, to your letter because the heat which mounted to my head would not have permitted me to do so with proper moderation. I have pa.s.sed my entire life in doing my best, to the sweet murmur of reproaches and outrages from those whom I have served; but perhaps nothing ever has hurt me so much as this ... Let others do better, I will congratulate them.... No human consideration can retain me any longer in the following of this very ungrateful, dramatic literary a.s.sociation. I salute, honor and love you.
?I realize in re-reading my scribbling that my head is still hot, but I recommence in vain. I find myself less master of myself than I could wish.?
?Sedaine,? says Lom?nie, ?recognizing that he had been in the wrong, replied by an affectionate letter which proved that if the author of _Le Philosophe sans le Savoir_ loved gossip, he was at heart an excellent man.?
?Yes, my dear colleague,? he wrote, ?your head was still hot when you replied. Perhaps something in my letter hurt you, because the reproaches which I had heard uttered had angered me. I cannot, however, believe that you have taken for my sentiments that which I reported of your ungrateful and unreasonable _confr?res_. Nevertheless, excepting three or four, the rest do us justice, and it is to you that we pa.s.s it on. If I said anything which pained you, I very sincerely beg your pardon. It is for you to be moderate, it does you more honor than me, who am older than you.
Continue your beautiful and excellent services; finish your work, and do them good in spite of their ingrat.i.tude. This affair terminated to our honor by you, I will beg them to a.s.semble at my house and they will order me to join myself to a deputation to go to thank you for all your pains.
This is all we can offer you now. They will do it, or I shall separate myself from them for the rest of my life, who have only need of repose and your friendship.
?I embrace you with all my heart, and let us leave the evilly disposed for what they are.?
The debates, however, were not over, for the next ten years the struggle continued with Beaumarchais always in the lead.
?At last,? says Lom?nie, ?the Revolution came to put an end to the old abusive privileges of the Th??tre-Fran?ais, and the usurpation of the directors of the theaters of the provinces. Following a pet.i.tion drawn up by La Harpe, Beaumarchais and Sedaine, representing the society of dramatic authors and under the influence of numerous memoirs published by Beaumarchais, the National a.s.sembly recognized the right of property of authors, suppressed all the privileges of the Com?die-Fran?aise, and decreed, on the 13th of January, 1791, that the works of living authors could not be produced anywhere in France without the consent of the authors.... To protect these interests was one of the chief occupations of the old age of Beaumarchais.... To the very end he continued to be the patron of men of letters; one of his last letters was addressed to the Minister of the Interior under the Directory, supporting a pet.i.tion of the society.?
It was Napoleon who gave the final form to the regulations existing between dramatic authors and the Th??tre-Fran?ais. The honor, nevertheless, belonged to Beaumarchais, for it was he who conceived and carried on for so many years one of the most difficult enterprises ever undertaken by a private individual.
Essentially modern in all his views, his was the r?le of preparing the way for many of the things that the nineteenth century was to produce. Himself no revolutionist, at least not in theory, it was yet he who played so important a part in sustaining on one hand and preparing on the other the two greatest political and social revolutions which the world has ever seen.
The establishment of the reign of justice, liberty, and individual rights was the goal ever before him.
?_Qu? ?tais-je donc_,? he writes near the close of his life, ?What have I been after all? I have been nothing by myself and myself as I have remained, free in the midst of fetters, serene in the greatest dangers, braving all the storms, sustaining commerce with one hand and war with the other, indolent as a mule, but always working, the b.u.t.t of a thousand calumnies, but happy in my family, never having been of any coterie, neither literary, nor political, nor mystic, never having paid court to anyone, and ever repelled by all.? Somewhere else he adds, ?It is the mystery of my life, in vain I try to comprehend it.?
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