my guardianship!”
And M. Lintilhac continues: “Nevertheless the care does not rest altogether on him, the main part falls on Julie—who keeps the purse, which is no small matter, for we find that, by the 17th of November she already had given out from 7000 to 8000 francs. We must believe that they were well expended because she no doubt followed the programme traced for her by her brother. ‘I recommend to you economy as the mother of comfort,’ and he adds without joking, ‘modesty as the amiable companion of great success.’ He wishes that the family, ‘think of him a little in his absence.’ ‘Men are vain,’ he adds, ‘they like to be flattered.’ ”
Beaumarchais, just before leaving Spain, wrote: “So I am putting my whole mind on my business, my Father, while my misfortune causes me to lose 2000 écus of income from the provisions of France which dissolve especially to ruin me, the King of Spain and the Ministers cast their eyes on me to be at the head of those in Spain, as my old Du Verney is of those in France. There is talk of joining to this the furnishing in general of all the grain needed for Spain as well as the fabrication of saltpetre and powder, so that I may find myself suddenly at the head of a company for providing provisions, subsistencies, munitions and agricultural products.
“Keep this for the family and see that my prospects, honest as they are, are known only by their success.”
And Julie replied in her tenderest vein, “My Beaumarchais, my amiable genius, I have seen your letters, your projects, your work and nothing surprises me, not even your philosophizing over our sad news. When any one appreciates you as I do, one has the right to count upon astonishing things. Assuredly we will keep the secret; but when do you return? My heart rebels at your long absence.”
M. Lintilhac continues: “We know his grand projects did not receive the aid and sanction of the ministry, but they were dismissed with flattering compliments for him. All his plans, however, had not proved abortive as has so often been said, because on returning to France he writes to his father from Bordeaux, April 2nd, 1765, ‘I am now at Bordeaux, I don’t know whether I shall leave to-morrow or the next day. My Spanish business requires certain information which I can obtain only here, or in some other seaport.
“ ‘I received a letter from Durand at Madrid very satisfactory in regard to the obliging regrets of the honest people of Madrid as well as for the affairs to which I have there attached him. I am absolutely alone, my valet de chambre stayed at Bayonne with a groom and three beautiful horses, which at Paris ought to pay the price of their journey as well as my own.’ ”
No record has come down to us of the meeting of Beaumarchais and his family after their long separation, but now that we know them all so intimately it is not difficult to reconstruct the scene, the venerable father pressing his son to his bosom, the tears of tenderness welling to his eyes, the sisters rushing to embrace him, the friends and domestics even, eager to clasp his hand, and all radiant with the thought of having him in their midst. Then this outburst of affection over, what gaiety and mirth follow, and all that human expansiveness which comes so spontaneously from the heart!
But though the family tie remained as strong as ever, a decided change had come already into the situation between him and Pauline. Nevertheless, matters were smoothed over and the marriage was definitely decided upon. Misunderstandings, however, continued from time to time, and in the midst of these troubles, a rumor reached the ears of Beaumarchais, that the Chevalier du S. had intentions upon Pauline. Beaumarchais, furious, wrote a letter to the Chevalier who in turn defended himself in a letter which is as follows: “It seems to me, Monsieur, that a counterfeit story ought to find less credit in your eyes than in those of others, since you have been all your life the butt of such reports. For the rest, I beg you to believe that I do not write to obtain grace, but because I owe to Mlle. de L. B.—to make known the truth upon a point which compromises her, and because it would be hard and very hard for me to lose your esteem.”
Pauline replied to the same charge with an indifference which shows a great change of sentiment on her part.
“As I was ignorant of the project of M. le Chevalier before I received your letter, and as I know nothing of the matter, you will permit me to inform myself before I reply. As to the reproach which you make in regard to Julie, I do not feel that I merit it, if I have not sent to know how she is, it is because I have been assured that she was very much better and had been seen at her window, which made me think that it was true. If my aunt were not ill, which prevents my leaving, I would assuredly go to see her. I embrace her with all my heart.”
M. de Loménie says: “The two were perhaps innocent at that moment, if I can judge from a letter of a cousin of Pauline’s and a friend of Beaumarchais, very badly treated by the latter in regard to this affair, ‘When you have a more tranquil mind so that you will do me justice,’ says the cousin, ‘I will speak openly with you and prove to you that you, who condemn others so easily, are more culpable than those you believe to be dissimulating and perfidious. Nothing is so pure as the heart of the dear Pauline, nothing nobler than that of the Chevalier, or more sincere than my own, and you look upon all three as though we were monsters.’ ”
The above letter of November 8, 1765, is all we have to fix the date of the previous one. During the interval which follows, it is impossible to determine exactly what happened, but true it is that by February 11th, 1766, the definite rupture had taken place and even the cousin undertakes no longer to shield the “dear Pauline.” As to the Chevalier, who a year before had written of Julie, “She is the unique object of my tenderest desires,” it may be that Julie herself had much to do with his estrangement, for in a letter already quoted we have her own authority for believing that she was never very deeply in love, and her “maliciousness,” may have helped to cool the ardor of the Chevalier. Certain it is, that Julie with all her warmth and expansiveness was not by nature any more formed for absorbing passions than was her brother. A letter belonging to a very much earlier period, proves that love was at no time a very serious matter with her, while it paints to the life the gaiety of her character. She writes, “You must know, my dear Lhénon upon what terms of folly I am with your brother. His air of interest for me, of which I wrote a month ago, has developed singularly and beautified itself since our friends have gone to the country. He comes nearly every evening to supper and stays till midnight or one o’clock. Ah my dear Lhénon, you should hear him recounting to me, and me retorting in the same tone with that air of folie that you have always known me to possess; but in the midst of all these pleasantries I have sometimes found a happy way of expressing myself, so as to persuade him seriously that I do not love him, and I believe him convinced, although I have never said half as many sweet things to him as I do now, because of an agreement which we have to love each other two days of the week, he has chosen Monday and Saturday, and I took Thursday and Sunday. On those days we say very tender things, although it is agreed that there shall always be one farouche when the other loves.”
This to be sure was a girlish fancy, but the character of Julie retained to the end much of the folie of which she here speaks, without, however, in the least impairing its real seriousness. But whatever the cause, the fact remains that the Chevalier du S. declared himself to Pauline, who in turn disengaged herself from Beaumarchais. The correspondence ended with two long letters from the latter and one short, dry note from Pauline. M. de Loménie in speaking of the letters of Beaumarchais observes, “In novels each impulse of the human heart is ordinarily painted separately with vivid colors, well marked and without blending. In reality, things seldom pass that way; when one impulse is not strong enough to stifle all the others, which generally is the case, the human heart presents a confused medley where the most diverse sentiments, often directly opposite, speak at the same time.” It is thus that in the letters which are given, one can discern in the heart of Beaumarchais, to quote Loménie, “a remnant of love reawakening, excited by jealousy and restricted in its expression by vanity, scruples of delicacy and honor, the fears of ‘what they will say,’ the need to prove that he has no reproach to make to himself, the determination to wed, and yet perhaps a
