Tardy and very partial justice was at last rendered the heirs of Beaumarchais by the United States Government, when in 1835 their claims were settled by the payment of a portion of the debt owed to him; but as a personality he still remains unknown to us. The study which follows aims at portraying this unusual character in its true colors; it does not attempt to make of him an ideal hero, faultless and blameless; but it endeavors to show him as he was, full of violent contrasts, of limitless resource and energy, raising constantly about him a whirlwind of opposition, loved by his family and friends, hated by those whom he outstripped in the rapidity of his advancement, plunging from one gigantic enterprise into another, never at rest; ready at all times to come to the aid of distress which presented itself in any form, entering with sympathetic interest into the minutest details, always with time for everything, but above all, with persistent determination demanding justice, and in the pursuit of this aim, rousing the antagonism of all classes; attacking fearlessly time-honored institutions—literary, social and judicial—so that he becomes one of the most powerful undermining forces which finally brought about the total collapse of the old regime.
In his adventurous career, the part which he played in the War of American Independence forms but an incident. Though the primary object of this book is to show what that part really was, yet it is necessary to study his life and character in order to understand why Beaumarchais was interested in our cause, and how it came about that he was able to render us such signal service.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] See Bancroft, Vol. III, p. 62.
[2] See John Fiske’s American Revolution, Vol. I, p. 244.
[3] J. Fiske’s American Revolution, Vol. I, p. 243.
[4] J. Fiske’s American Revolution, Vol. II, pp. 27–32.
[5] H. Doniol, Vol. I, p. 129.
[6] See Turgot’s Address to the King; Bancroft, Vol. IV, p. 369.
[7] See Durand’s New Material for the History of the American Revolution, p. 6.
[8] For an account of the cabal formed for replacing Washington in his command, see Fiske’s American Revolution, Vol. II, p. 32.
[9] H. Doniol, La Participation de la France dans l’établissement des Etats-Unis, Paris, ’86-’92, in five folio volumes.
[10] Histoire de Beaumarchais, by Paul Philippe Gudin de la Brenellerie. Edited by Maurice Tourneux, Paris, 1888.
[11] A similar debt of reparation is still owed by America to the memory of Silas Deane. As his part in the great conflict was closely interwoven with that of Beaumarchais, the suspicions that fell upon one were necessarily shared by the other—and both rested under the same impossibility of justifying themselves before the world. The publication of the French archives has done for both men what they could not do for themselves, and though the treatment accorded Silas Deane by Congress drove him to such despondency that he subsequently lost faith in the American cause, no shadow rests upon the patriotism which inspired his early efforts in that cause. Charlemagne Tower, Jr., in his The Marquis de La Fayette in the American Revolution has given to the public all the essential documents which show the claim to gratitude which Silas Deane has upon the American people.
CHAPTER I
“Je passe encore sous silence la scène dégoûtante entre deux hommes où vous vous êtes égaré jusqu’à me reprocher que je n’étais que le fils d’un horloger. Moi qui m’honore de mes parents. …”
Beaumarchais au Duc de Chaulnes, 1771
Early life—Trained by his Father to the Trade of Watchmaker—Invents an Escapement for Watches—First Lawsuit—Horloger du Roi—Enters the Court of Versailles as Contrôleur clerc d’office—First Marriage—Assumes the Name of Beaumarchais—Death of his Wife—Becomes Music Master to the Princesses of France—Attracts the Attention of Paris du Verney
IT was on the twenty-fourth day of January, 1732, in an inconspicuous watchmaker’s shop on the rue St. Denis in Paris, that the child first saw the light who was baptized Pierre-August and whose family name was Caron. He was the seventh of ten children, six of whom were girls, but as his brothers all died in infancy he was the only son of the household and consequently its idol.
Formed by nature for fun and frolic, the little “Pierrot” as he was called had the merriest possible childhood. His mother gentle, loving, and indulgent shielded her favorite from his father, who at times was somewhat stern, while his elder sisters petted and spoiled him, and the younger ones entered heartily into his games and pastimes. Two of the girls were younger than he, the one nearest his age, Julie, was his favorite, and was also the one who most resembled him by her talents and her native wit and gaiety. It is from her pen that we have most of the details of their early life. In some of her youthful rhymes Julie tells us how “Pierrot” commanded a band of little good-for-nothings, roving about either to plunder the larder of Margot, the cook, or returning at night to disturb the slumber of the peaceful inhabitants of the rue St. Denis. Again in inharmonious verse she recounts how—
“Upon an incommodious seat Arranged in form of a pagoda Caron presents a magistrate, By his huge wig and linen collar. Each one pleads with might and main, Before that judge inexorable That nothing will appease, Whose only pleasure is to rain Upon his clients ever pleading Blows of fist and tongs and shovel; And the hearing never ends, Till wigs and bonnets roll away In dire confusion and disorder.”
But it must not be thought that the elder Caron approved of too much levity. Although he was himself witty and gifted with a keen literary and artistic sense, he was above all a serious man with an earnest purpose in life. He was descended from Huguenot ancestors who had managed to live in France after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, although they no longer possessed a legal existence. Their religious exercises were performed in caves or dark woods or in some desert spot. Here their marriages were solemnized by wandering ministers. The grandparents of Pierre-August, Daniel Caron and Marie Fortain, had been thus united, but their son, André-Charles Caron, shortly before his marriage with Louise Picheon in 1722, abjured his faith and joined himself to the Catholic Church. He retained, however, his Calvinistic character.
André-Charles Caron, like his father, was a watchmaker by profession. He was one of those exquisitely skilled French workmen who had done so much for the advancement of science in their own country, and who, when driven into exile, made the fortune of the people among whom they sought refuge, notably the Swiss. Not content with the exercise of his profession alone, the penetrating mind of André-Charles