feeling belongs to every country. There are here great and little France. My sisters are too well brought up to belong to the latter and they are not considered rich enough to be admitted to the former, so that the visits of the Drouillets were for me alone; at which Monsieur your son, took the liberty of putting Madame Drouillet in her place; and so she says that I am malin. You know what that means, my dear father, and whether there is malice in seeing things clearly and then in saying what one thinks.”
In relation to the debtors of the elder Caron at Madrid, allusions frequently occur in the letters. For instance, the father writes, “I see what you have done and what you are doing among my debtors from whom I would never have drawn a farthing but for you.” At another time Beaumarchais writes, “I am in a way to receive payment from all of your grandees—their self esteem is so mixed up with it that I think I shall manage to get all they owe you. My letters to them are polite but proud. The duke and duchess do not seem to want to be under any obligation to me, fearing that I will boast of it and that the length of the credit will be divulged. Let me manage it in my own way.”
Here is a sample of his manner of approaching these creditors of his father. “Knowing that a number of idle people do me the honor of disturbing themselves regarding the motives of my stay in Spain, it has seemed to me my duty to tranquilize them by employing my time in soliciting the debts of my house. In consequence I have the honor to demand of your excellency the permission”—here follows a statement of the debt owed to the elder Caron. One of these individuals of quality thus addressed being in no way anxious to pay, revenged herself by trying to show up Beaumarchais as an adventurer. Immediately the latter wrote home and received from his sister Julie by return post, a beautifully printed decree drawn from the “Cabinet rose” by the chimney. There are four great pages containing fifteen articles reinforced by legal terms and extracts of ordinances—the whole surmounted with a beautiful ornament made of acanthus leaves and bearing the following inscription, “Made at the castle of the Louvre by Monsieur Pierre-August Caron de Beaumarchais, Equerry Councilor of the King, lieutenant-général des chasses aux bailliage et capitainerie de la varenne du Louvre, grande vennerie, fauconnerie of France, having session in the chamber of council, Tuesday, January 17th, 1764, signed de Vitry, chief registrar.” For fear the list was not long enough, knowing well that one can never have too many titles in Spain, his brother-in-law added, “Equerry Councilor, secretary of the king, contrôleur of the house of the king, lieutenant-general, etc.”
But it is impossible to touch upon all the details of that correspondence so faithfully sustained on both sides for more than a year, during his stay in Spain. These letters are the chief source from which we have to draw in estimating Beaumarchais the son, brother and friend, as well as the man of the world and the man of business. Fortunately nearly all these letters have been preserved; we shall have occasion to return to them when treating of another phase of the life of Beaumarchais in relation to a connection formed before his sudden departure from Paris. As this incident with its connections takes us away from the outside world and conducts us into the inmost sanctuary of the home established in the rue de Condé, all the letters which touch upon it seem to belong to the next chapter.
It is there we shall see Beaumarchais playing at first the part of the happy and accepted lover of his charming Pauline, but a little later assuming the rather astonishing rôle of victim, for in the words of Loménie, “In the end he is really the victim, and we shall see that he does his best to be furious. He is here the antithesis of Clavico. It is Pauline who will be Clavico, or rather there will be a Clavico who will carry off Pauline.”
CHAPTER IV
“Figure charmante, organe flexible et touchant! de l’âme surtout. …”
“Les deux amis,” Act 1, Scene 1.
The Beautiful Creole, Pauline—Beaumarchais the Judge, the Lover, the Friend—Mademoiselle de Boisgarnier Marries Janot de Miron—The Père Caron’s Second Marriage.
BEFORE entering into a consideration of the rôle played by Beaumarchais as lover, a few more touches are necessary to represent him as he was before the world. We already have spoken of his various appointments at court, and mentioned the fact that in 1763 he had bought the very honorable charge of lieutenant-général des chasses aux bailliage et capitainerie de la varenne du Louvre.
In order that it may be quite clear to the reader what were the functions assumed in acquiring this office we may explain that the capitaineries were territorial circumscriptions in which the right of hunting was reserved exclusively for the king. That known as “la varenne du Louvre” extended for some fifty or sixty miles about Paris. There was a special tribunal called “the tribunal to conserve the pleasures of the king” which tried all cases connected with infringements of the regulations belonging to the capitaineries. The audiences of the particular one in question were held once a week at the Louvre. They were presided over by the duke de la Vallière, whose chief officer Beaumarchais now became.
When the duke was absent, which M. de Loménie assures us was almost invariably the case, Beaumarchais himself presided. Under the latter were many subordinates, some of them noblemen of high rank, so that it is easy to understand the prestige of such an office.
There were innumerable regulations, many of them very trying to private individuals, which it became the duty of the lieutenant-general to enforce. In the territory belonging to the capitainerie, no game could be shot, no garden or other wall be constructed without special authorization from the tribunal which presided over these matters. So annoying were these regulations that in 1789 the suppression of the capitaineries was one of the most popular measures voted by the Assemblée Constituante. In 1763, however, no one had thought as yet of the possibility of doing without them, so that we shall see Beaumarchais entering with his usual ardor into the exact and circumspect performance of his new duties.
To think of Beaumarchais as he appears later in life, attacking with the audacity which belongs to him alone, the very foundations of feudal despotism in his inimitable Mariage de Figaro, and to see him now in his long judicial robes seated upon the fleur de lis, gravely judging “pale humans” apropos of rabbits, is a contrast which hardly can be met with in any other career, and certainly not in any other century. That he took his functions seriously and that he also knew how to guard such rights as individuals then possessed is clearly shown in the following characteristic anecdote which we quote from Gudin.
“Soon after his return from Spain, Beaumarchais had a quarrel with the Prince of Condé, on the subject of the privileges of the chase, in connection with a certain garden wall which the Prince had torn down and which Beaumarchais as the protector of the rights of the individual had caused to be rebuilt. The Prince was very angry. M. de Beaumarchais mounted on a horse and went to find him while the nobleman was out hunting.
“ ‘I have come,’ said Beaumarchais, ‘to give an account of my conduct.’
“A discussion at once arose; the Prince had a good deal of esprit and what is rarer still in one of his rank, he had liberal ideas.
“ ‘Certainly,’ Beaumarchais said to him, ‘your Highness can obtain anything you wish. Your rank, your power—’
“ ‘No,’ replied the Prince, ‘it is as lawyer that I pretend to be in the right.’
“ ‘In that case,’ said Beaumarchais, ‘I demand of your Highness leave to be the lawyer on the opposite side and to plead before you. You shall be the judge.’
“He
