In dealing with his royal pupils, Beaumarchais exercised great tact and knew how to make them satisfied with themselves and with him. La Harpe says of him: “I have seen few men more favored by nature. His countenance and the tone of his voice were equally ardent, the former illuminated by eyes full of fire; there was as much expression in the accent and the look, as delicacy in the smile, and above all, a kind of assurance which was inspired by a consciousness of power.”
These personal gifts, this assurance and skill, even more than the favor of Mesdames, quickly attracted to him the enmity of those whose high birth alone assured them a reception at court. No better idea of the snares set for him, nor of his skill in avoiding them can be given than by quoting a few pages from Gudin.
“One morning as he presented himself to be admitted to Mesdames, one of their women ran to meet him.
“ ‘Oh my dear friend you are lost, some one has persuaded Mesdames that you are on very bad terms with your father, that he has driven you from his house and that, indignant at the tricks you have played him, he will not see you any more.’
“ ‘Oh, is that all? Then I do not count myself dead. Don’t disturb yourself.’ He said this and hurried back to Paris.
“ ‘You have always wished to see Versailles; I have an excellent opportunity to-day to show you the palace in detail.’ Father and son then returned with all possible speed. Beaumarchais took pains that they should be seen by the Princesses at the celebration of the mass, at their dinner, at their promenade, everywhere they were to be found.
“In the evening, still accompanied by his father, whom he left in an ante-chamber, he entered the apartments of the Princesses; he found them cold, dreamy, embarrassed, and not wanting to look at him, trying to show more annoyance than they really felt.
“The most vivacious of them said to him with impatience, ‘With whom have you been all day?’
“ ‘Madame, with my father.’
“ ‘His father, Adelaide, that isn’t possible, we were told that they had quarreled.’
“ ‘I, Madame. I pass my life with him. He is in the ante-room—I have come for your orders; he is waiting for me, if you will deign to see him he will testify to the attachment which I have never ceased to have for him.’ ”
The Princesses, as Beaumarchais had well guessed, were anxious to see the father of their instructor and he was bidden to enter. As the elder Caron possessed, amongst his other qualities, scarcely less sense of a situation and power of adaptability than his son, he was at once at his ease. His personal dignity and sincerity of manner could not fail to produce a pleasing impression upon the young women who, as we have seen, demanded merit as the ground of their favor, so that in its results this intrigue which was intended to ruin the young man, really served to heighten the esteem in which he was held.
At another time on leaving their apartments, Beaumarchais was intercepted by a crowd of youthful noblemen one of whom had wagered to cover him with confusion. Approaching him, the nobleman said—to quote from Gudin, “ ‘Monsieur, you who are so clever with watches, will you tell me if this is a good one?’
“ ‘Monsieur,’ replied Beaumarchais, looking at the company, ‘since I have ceased to work at that trade I have become very awkward.’
“ ‘Ah, Monsieur, do not refuse me.’
“ ‘Very well, but I warn you that I have lost my art.’ Then taking the watch he opened it, raised it in the air feigning to examine it, and suddenly let it fall from that elevation; then, making a profound reverence, he said, ‘I warned you, Monsieur, of my extreme awkwardness,’ and walked away leaving his provoker to gather up the debris of his watch while the assembly burst into laughter.”
But the insults did not stop here.
They became so frequent and their tone grew so malignant that Beaumarchais felt the time had come to put a stop to them. Seriously outraged by a courtier whom Gudin calls the Chevalier du C—— he accepted the provocation.
They mounted their horses and rode off to a secluded spot in the woods behind Meudon. In the words of Gudin, “Beaumarchais had the sad advantage of plunging his sword into the bosom of his adversary; but when on withdrawing it he saw the blood issue in a copious stream he was seized with terror and thought of nothing but helping him. He took his handkerchief and attached it as well as he could over the wound, to arrest the flow of blood and to stop fainting.
“ ‘Save yourself,’ said the fallen man, ‘you are lost if any one sees you, if any one learns that it is you who have taken my life.’
“ ‘You must have help, I will get it for you’—Beaumarchais mounted and rode to Meudon, found a surgeon, and indicating the spot to him, where the wounded man lay, he went off at full gallop to Paris to see what was to be done. His first care was to inform himself if the Chevalier du C—— still lived. He found that he had been brought to Paris but that his life was despaired of—he learned that the sick man refused to name the one who had wounded him so seriously.
“ ‘I have only what I merit,’ he said. ‘I have provoked an honest man who never gave me any offense, to please people whom I do not esteem.’
“His relatives and friends were not able to draw any other reply from him during the eight days which he lived. He carried the secret to the tomb, leaving to Beaumarchais the regret of having taken the life of a man who proved so generous an enemy.
“ ‘Ah, young man,’ Beaumarchais said to me one day when I was joking over some duel which was then much talked about, ‘you do not know what despair a man feels when he sees the hilt of his sword upon his enemy’s breast!’ It was then that he related to me this adventure which was still afflicting him, although many years had elapsed since it had taken place. He never spoke of it without grief, and I should probably never have heard of it, if he had not thought it right to make me feel how dangerous it might be to joke about such fatal affairs, the number of which is increased much more by frivolity than by bravery.”
It may be well to add, in relation to the death of the Chevalier du C—— that the protection of Mesdames, who personally interceded with the King, prevented an investigation being made so that Beaumarchais was secure.
But while he was still holding his own in the envious crowd of courtiers at Versailles, his position was in reality far from desirable. Monsieur de Loménie says: “Having no other resource than the small income from his charge of contrôleur, not only was he obliged to put his time gratuitously at the disposal of the Princesses, without speaking of the cost of keeping up appearances, but he even at times found himself under the necessity of proceeding like a great lord, and of making advances for the purchase of costly instruments which they scarcely thought of promptly paying back. Very desirous of enriching himself, he was too clever to compromise his credit by receiving pecuniary recompense, which would have put him in the rank of a mercenary; he preferred to wait for some favorable occasion, when he might obtain a real advantage from his position, reserving the right to say later: ‘I have passed four years in meriting the good graces of Mesdames by the most assiduous and most disinterested pains bestowed upon divers objects of their amusements.’
“But Mesdames, like all other women and especially princesses, had sufficiently varied fancies which it was necessary to satisfy immediately. In the correspondence of Mme. du Deffant is the very amusing story of a box of candied quinces of Orleans, so impatiently demanded by Madame Victoire that the King, her father, sent in haste to the minister, M. de Choiseul, who sent to the Bishop of Orleans, who was awakened at three o’clock in the morning to give him, to his great affright, a missive from the King, running as follows:
“ ‘Monsieur the bishop of Orleans, my daughters wish some cotignac; they wish the very small boxes; send some. If you have none, I beg you … [in this place