??The comedians of the Com?die-Fran?aise are going to present in a few days, a drama of a new kind which all Paris is awaiting with lively impatience. The orders which I gave to the comedians in making them a present of the work, that they should guard the secret of the name of the author, have not been obeyed. In their unfortunate enthusiasm, they believed that they rendered me a service in transgressing my wishes. As this work, child of my sensibility, breathes the love of virtue, and tends to purify our theater and make it a school of good manners, I have felt that I owe a special homage to my ill.u.s.trious protectresses. I come, therefore, Mesdames, to beg you to listen to a reading of my play. After that, if the public at the representation carries me to the skies, the most beautiful success of my drama will be to have been honored by your tears, as the author has always been by your benefits.?
?With the duke of Noailles, to whom he had read the piece, and who had shown an interest, Beaumarchais poses as a statesman who has missed his calling. The letter to the Duke of Noailles is as follows:
??It is only in odd moments, Monsieur le duc, that I dare give way to my taste for literature. When I cease for one moment to turn the earth and cultivate the garden of my advancement, instantly what I have cleared is covered with brambles so that I must recommence unceasingly. Another of the follies from which I have been forced to tear myself is the study of politics, a subject th.o.r.n.y and repulsive for most men, but quite as attractive as useless for me. I loved it to madness, and I have done everything to develop it, the rights of respective powers, the pretentions of princes, by which the ma.s.s of mankind always is kept in commotion, the action and reaction of governments, all these are interests made for my soul. Perhaps there is no one who has felt so much the disadvantage of being able to see things _en grand_, being at the same time the smallest of men. Sometimes I have gone so far as to murmur in my unjust humor that fate did not place me more advantageously in regard to those things for which I believed myself suited, especially when I consider that the missions which kings and ministers give to their agents, have the power to confer the grace of the ancient apostleship, which instantly made sublime and intelligent men of the most insignificant brains.??
To the duke of Nivernais, Beaumarchais was indebted for a useful criticism of the weak side of his play. It probably may be due to that n.o.bleman?s observations that he made the important change of transporting the scene to England, and giving the characters English names. As the play now stands, after decided modifications made immediately following the first representations, the story is this:
[Ill.u.s.tration: _Eug?nie_]
Eug?nie, the daughter of a Welsh gentleman, supposes herself the wife of Lord Clarendon, nephew of the Minister of War. Clarendon, however, basely has deceived her by a false marriage in which his steward plays the r?le of chaplain, and he prepares to marry a wealthy heiress the very day that his victim arrives in London.
The weakness of the play consists in this, that while the character of Eug?nie in its delicate, sweet womanliness, enlists our entire sympathy and admiration, we are not sufficiently prepared at the end of the fifth act to see the man who has so deceived her, pardoned and re-accepted on his giving up his intended marriage along with the ambitious schemes of his powerful uncle, even though the old baron utters the sublime truth that ?he who has sincerely repented is farther from evil than he who has never known it.?
In the words of the Duke of Nivernais, ?In the first act Clarendon is a scoundrel who has deceived a young girl of good family by a false marriage, he prepares to wed another, and this is the man, who in the end finds grace in the eyes of Eug?nie, a being who interests us. It requires a great deal of preparation to arrive at this conclusion.? This was the whole difficulty, and though Beaumarchais retouched as best he could the character of Clarendon, making as much as possible of the extenuating circ.u.mstances, and emphasizing his hesitation and remorse, the play remains weak in this respect.
The English imitation before spoken of, rectifies this difficulty by altering the r?le of Clarendon. In the advertis.e.m.e.nt, the author says, however, ?I have not dared to deviate from the gentle, interesting Eug?nie of Beaumarchais.?
The play finally was given for the first time, January 29th, 1767. In the ?_Ann?e Litt?raire_? of that year this pa.s.sage occurs: ?_Eug?nie_, played for the first time January the 29th of this year, was badly received by the public and its reception had all the appearance of a failure; it has raised itself since with brilliancy, through omissions and corrections; it occupied the public for a long time and this success greatly honors the comedians.?
?The changes made by Beaumarchais between the first and second representations were sufficient,? says Lom?nie, ?to bring into relief the first three acts, which contain many beautiful parts, and which announced already a rare talent of _mise en sc?ne_ and of dialogue. The refined, distinguished acting of an amiable young actress, Mlle. Doligny, who represented Eug?nie, contributed not a little to save the drama and make it triumph brilliantly over the danger that threatened its first representation.?
Beaumarchais had gained the public ear, but not the critics. As Lintilhac says: ?The enterprise did not proceed without scandal, for at the second representation instead of hissing, the public weeps. The critic enraged at the success of the piece cried, ?It is all the fault of the women--talk to them of _Eug?nie_; it is they who have perverted the taste of our dear young people.? Nevertheless the piece endures in the face of censures and cabals.--He managed his dramatic affairs quite as cleverly as the others.
Abuse goes along with success, _tant mieux!_ So much the better, it gives him the opportunity of lashing criticism with witty replies, which he prints with his play in a long preface of justification.?
?Into what a wasps? nest you have put your head,? said Diderot to him.
Gudin observes, ?He was not one to be frightened at their buzzing, or to stop on his way to kill flies. He was busying himself with a new drama.?
That this first production, ?This child of my sensibility,? as he called it, was always dear to his heart is proved by the fact that years afterwards Beaumarchais gave the name of Eug?nie to his only daughter, of whom we shall have much to say later on.
But in the meantime, an event occurred which for a period of two years had an important bearing on his life. To quote Gudin: ?It was about this time that Madam B., celebrated for her beauty, came one day to find the sister of Beaumarchais and asked her what her brother was doing as she had not seen him for a long time.
??I do not know if he is at home, but I believe he is working on his drama.?
??I have something to say to him.?
?He was called. He appeared looking like a hermit, his hair in disorder, his beard long, his face illumined by meditation.
??Well, my friend, what are you busying yourself with when an amiable woman, recently a widow, sought already by several pretendants, might prefer you? I am to ride with her to-morrow in that secluded avenue of the Champs ?lys?es, which is called _l?all?e des Veuves_; mount on horseback, we will meet you there as if by chance; you will speak to me, and then you shall both see whether or not you are suited to one another.?
?The next day Beaumarchais, followed by a domestic, appeared mounted on a superb horse which he managed with grace. He was seen from the coach in which the ladies were riding long before he joined them. The beauty of the steed, the bearing of the cavalier worked in his favor; when he came near, Madam B. said she knew the horseman. Beaumarchais came up and was presented to the lady.
?This meeting produced a very vivid impression; the veil, the cr?pe, the mourning costume served to bring into relief the fairness of the complexion and the beauty of the young widow. Beaumarchais soon left his horse for the carriage, and as no author dialogued better for the stage so no man ever brought more art into his conversation. If at first it was simply sallies of wit, it became by degrees more interesting and finished by being attractive. Beaumarchais finally proposed that the ladies should come and dine at his home. Madam B. persuaded the young woman to consent, although she refused several times. He sent back his horse by his domestic which was the signal arranged with his sister in order that she might prepare to receive the ladies, one of whom was an entire stranger.
?It is very different seeing a man out riding and seeing him in his own home. It is there that one must follow him in order to judge him rightly and so it was on entering that unpretentious, though elegant and convenient home, seeing Beaumarchais surrounded by his old domestics, seated between his father and sister, the latter a young woman of much intelligence and proud of such a brother, the young woman could not but realize that it would be an honor to have him for her husband. The table disposes to confidence, the heart opens and discloses itself; they had not left it before each was sure of the other and they had but one desire, never to separate. They were married in April, 1768. His fortune was increased by that of his wife, and his happiness by the possession of a woman who loved him pa.s.sionately.?
His wife?s name was Madame L?v?que, _n?e_ Genevi?ve Madeleine Watebled.
She was possessed of an ample fortune which added to that of Beaumarchais made their position in every way desirable. The world at last seemed ready to smile upon him and he quite content to settle down to peaceful enjoyment of all the blessings with which his life was now crowned.
Gudin says, ?Happy in love and in his friends, he amused himself in painting the effects of these pa.s.sions in a drama, ?_Les Deux Amis_.?? The following year a son was born to him, the happiness of being a father was the only happiness which had hitherto been denied him.
The new drama, ?_Les Deux Amis_,? although he himself says of it, ?It is the most powerfully composed of all my works,? was not a success before the Parisian public. In the provinces and in the most of Europe it met with a very different reception, long retaining its favor with the public there.
It is the story of two friends who live in the same house, Malac _p?re_, collector of rents for a Parisian company, and Aurelly, merchant of Lyons, where the scene is laid. Aurelly is expecting from Paris certain sums to enable him to meet a payment which must be made in a few days. Malac _p?re_ learns that the money from Paris will not arrive and to save his friend turns into the latter?s case all which he has in his possession as collector of rents, allowing his friend to think that the money from Paris has arrived. At this moment the agent-general of the Paris company appears demanding the rents. During two acts Malac _p?re_ allows himself to be suspected of having appropriated the money, meekly accepting the disdain of the friend whose credit he has saved.
The real situation discloses itself at last and through the heroism of Pauline, the niece of Aurelly, and the curiosity of the agent-general, St.
Alban, the threatened ruin is averted.
In connection with the main action, Beaumarchais has joined a charming episode of the loves of Pauline and Malac _fils_. The play opens with a pleasing scene, where the young girl is seated at the piano playing a sonata while the young man accompanies her with the violin; the scene and the conversation which follows are a touching souvenir of the early days of Beaumarchais?s attachment for the beautiful creole, Pauline.
The piece was produced January 13, 1770, and was given ten times. Lom?nie says, in explaining the reason for the short duration of the play: ?Each one of us suffers, loves and hates in virtue of an impulse of the heart, but very few have a clear idea of what is felt by one exposed to bankruptcy or supposed guilty of misappropriating money. These situations are too exceptional to work upon the soul, too vulgar to excite the imagination, they may well concur in forming the interest of a drama, but only on condition that they figure as accessories. Vainly did Beaumarchais blend the loves of Pauline and Malac _fils_, trying to sweeten the aridity of the subject. Several spiritual or pathetic scenes could not save the too commercial drama of ?_Les Deux Amis_.??
The author having, as he said, the advantage over his sad brothers of the pen in that he could go to the theater in his own _carosse_, and making perhaps a little too much of this advantage, the effect of the failure of his drama was to call out many witticisms. It is said that at the end of the first representation a wag of the parterre cried out, ?It is question here of bankruptcy; I am in it for twenty sous.?
Several days afterward Beaumarchais remarked to Sophie Arnould, apropos of an opera _Zoroaster_ which did not succeed, ?In a week?s time you will not have a person, or at least very few.?
The witty actress replied, ?_Vos Amis_ will send them to us.?
Finally the capital fault of the play is very well drawn up in the quatrain of the time,
_?I have seen Beaumarchais?s ridiculous drama, And in a single word I will say what it is; It is an exchange where money circulates, Without producing any interest.?_
Lintilhac remarks, ?He gave in this crisis a double proof of his genius; in the first place, he allowed his piece to fall without comment, and in the second he did not despair of his dramatic vocation.?
Already Beaumarchais was meditating his _Barbier de S?ville_ but in the meantime he was seriously occupied with a new and extensive business transaction. The fortune of his wife had enabled him to enter into a partnership with old Du Verney in the acquisition of the vast forest of Chinon, which they bought from the government. A letter to his wife, dated July 15, 1769, shows him at his work.
?De Rivarennes.
?You invite me to write, my good friend, and I wish to with all my heart, it is an agreeable relaxation from the fatigues of my stay in this village. Misunderstandings among the heads of departments to be reconciled, complaints, and demands of clerks to be listened to, an account of more than 100,000 _?cus_, in sums of from 20 to 30 _sous_ to regulate, and of which it was necessary to discharge the regular cashier, the different posts to be visited, two hundred workmen of the forest whose work must be examined, two hundred and eighty acres of wood cut down whose preparation and transportation must be looked after, new roads to be constructed into the forest and to the river, the old roads to be mended, three or four hundred tons of hay to be stacked, provisions of oats for thirty dray horses to be arranged for, thirty other horses to be brought for the transport of all the wood for the navy before winter, gates and sluices to be constructed in the river Indre in order to give us water all the year at the place where the wood is discharged, fifty vessels which wait to be loaded for Tours, Saumur, Angers and Nantes, the leases of seven or eight farms to sign, beside the provision for housing thirty persons; the general inventory of our receipts and expenses for the last two years to regulate, _voil?_, my dear wife, briefly the sum of my occupations of which part is terminated and the rest _en bon train_.?
After two more pages of details Beaumarchais terminates his letter thus: ?You see, my dear friend, that one sleeps less here than at Pantin, but the forced activity of this work does not displease me, since I have arrived in this retreat inaccessible to vanity, I have seen only simple people with unpretentious manners, such as I often desire myself to be. I lodge in my office which is a good peasant farm, between barnyard and kitchen garden, surrounded with a green hedge. My room with its four white-washed walls has for furniture an uncomfortable bed where I sleep like a top, four rush-bottomed chairs, an oaken table and a great fireplace without ornament or shelf; but I see from my window on writing you, the whole of the Varennes or prairies of the valley which I inhabit, full of robust, sunburned men who cut and cart hay with yokes of oxen, a mult.i.tude of women and girls each with a rake on the shoulder or in the hand, all singing songs whose shrill notes reach me as I write. Across the trees in the distance I see the tortuous course of the Indre and an ancient castle flanked by towers which belongs to my neighbor Madame de Ronc?e. The whole is crowned with wooded summits which multiply as far as the eye can see, the highest crests of which surround us on all sides in such a manner that they form a great spherical frame to the horizon, which they bound on every side. This picture is not without charm. Good coa.r.s.e bread, the most modest nourishment with execrable wine composes my repasts. In truth, if I dared wish you the evil of lacking everything in a desolate country I should deeply regret not having you by my side. Adieu, my friend. If you think that these details might interest our relatives and friends you are free to read my letters to them. Embrace them all for me and good night--it seems hard to me sometimes not to have you near--and my son, my son! how is he? I laugh when I think that it is for him that I work.?
In January, 1770, Beaumarchais could easily afford the ill success of his drama, for he was one of the best placed men in France. As we see him at this moment nothing seems lacking to complete his happiness. All his ambitions either are satisfied, or submerged. Of fierce trials, overwhelming calamities, of revolutions, and ignominy worse than death, he had as yet no idea. In 1767, he had written in his preface to his _Eug?nie_, ?What does it matter to me, peaceful subject of a monarchial state of the eighteenth century, the revolution of Athens and Rome? Why does the story of the earthquake which has engulfed the city of Lima with all its inhabitants, three thousand miles away, fill me with sorrow, while the judicial murder of Charles committed at the Tower only makes me indignant? It is because the volcano opened in Peru might explode in Paris and bury me in its ruins, while on the other hand I can never apprehend anything in the least similar to the unheard of misfortune which befell the king of England.? This from the pen of Beaumarchais! Beaumarchais, who in 1784 was to produce his famous _Mariage de Figaro_, of which Napoleon said it was, ?The Revolution in action.? Yes the Revolution, but not at all like the Revolution in England whose results were only political, but one which went down to the very foundation of the human soul changing the psychology of every individual man, woman and child in the fair land of France and from thence spreading its influence over the entire civilized world! Here again we have a startling proof of what already has been advanced, namely that the great actions in the life of Beaumarchais do not come from his own willing or contriving. In the sublime na?vet? of his genius he became the instrument of those mysterious forces, so gigantic, which first manifested themselves in France, and whose revolutionary power continues to be felt over the whole world to-day. For the moment, however, his thoughts and interests were all for the restricted circle of his family and friends. He laughed when he thought of the son for whom he was working. But alas, as no happiness had been denied, so no human calamity was to escape him, he must drink his cup of grief and abas.e.m.e.nt to the dregs.
Already the wife whom he cherished was attacked by a fatal malady which only could end in the grave, the son for whom he worked so gaily was soon to follow her; his property was to be seized, his aged father and dearly loved sister were to be turned adrift. Deprived of his liberty, entangled in the meshes of a criminal lawsuit and under circ.u.mstances so desperate that no lawyer could be found bold enough to plead his cause, it was then that the true force and grandeur of his soul were to be made manifest; it was then that he found himself caught on the crest of that giant wave of public opinion now forming itself in France, his petty personal affair was to become the affair of the nation. It was not to be himself as a private individual who opposed his wrongs against despotic power, but the people of France found through him a voice crying aloud for vengeance.
But the time was not yet ripe. Beaumarchais, happy in the bosom of his family, thought only of sweetening the remainder of that life which was perishing in his arms.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Le Jardin du Pet.i.t-Trianon]
?Before his second marriage, Madam Beaumarchais realizing to the full how difficult it was to see him without loving him,? says Gudin, ?and knowing how much he cherished women in general, said to him, ?You are a man of honor, promise me that you will never give me cause for jealousy and I will believe you.? He promised her and kept his word.? Gudin further says, ?When she was stricken with a fatal and contagious disease, he was even more a.s.siduous than before in his devotion. Reading in her eyes the fears that devoured her, he sought to dissipate them by his care and that host of little attentions which have so great a price for the hearts which understand each other. She received them with all the more grat.i.tude in that she could not fail to realize that she had lost those charms which had made her attractive, leaving only the memory of what she had been, joined to the sentiments of a pure soul already on the point of escaping from a frail body.
?Father, sisters, all the relatives of Beaumarchais, alarmed at his attachment, trembled lest he too should contract the malady and follow her to the tomb. She died on the 21st of November, 1770, leaving him the one son before mentioned. Her fortune, which had consisted almost entirely of a life income, was cut off with her death.?
Paris du Verney had died the same year. The moment had arrived when the storm so long gathering was about to break. The first part of the career of Beaumarchais was over, the dream of a quiet, peaceful life vanished forever, while stern and unending conflict entered to take its place.