Pierre Augustin Caron was born in Paris, January 24th, 1732. He was the
son of a watchmaker, and learned his father's trade. He invented a new
escapement, and was allowed to call himself "Clockmaker to the
King"--Louis XV. At twenty-four he married a widow, and took the name of
Beaumarchais from a small fief belonging to her. Within a year his wife
died. Being a fine musician, he was appointed instructor of the King's
daughters; and he was quick to turn to good account the influence thus
acquired. In 1764 he made a sudden trip to Spain to vindicate a sister
of his, who had been betrothed to a man called Clavijo and whom this
Spaniard had refused to marry. He succeeded in his mission, and his own
brilliant account of this characteristic episode in his career suggested
to Goethe the play of 'Clavigo.' Beaumarchais himself brought back from
Madrid a liking for things Spanish and a knowledge of Iberian customs
and character.
[Illustration: Beaumarchais]
He had been a watchmaker, a musician, a court official, a speculator,
and it was only when he was thirty-five that he turned dramatist.
Various French authors, Diderot especially, weary of confinement to
tragedy and comedy, the only two forms then admitted on the French
stage, were seeking a new dramatic formula in which they might treat
pathetic situations of modern life; and it is due largely to their
efforts that the modern "play" or "drama," the story of every-day
existence, has been evolved. The first dramatic attempt of Beaumarchais
was a drama called 'Eugénie,' acted at the Théâtre Français in 1767, and
succeeding just enough to encourage him to try again. The second, 'The
Two Friends,' acted in 1770, was a frank failure. For the pathetic,
Beaumarchais had little aptitude; and these two serious efforts were of
use to him only so far as their performance may have helped him to
master the many technical difficulties of the theatre.
Beaumarchais had married a second time in 1768, and he had been engaged
in various speculations with the financier Pâris-Duverney. In 1770 his
wife died, and so did his associate; and he found himself soon involved
in lawsuits, into the details of which it is needless to go, but in the
course of which he published a series of memoirs, or statements of his
case for the public at large. These memoirs are among the most vigorous
of all polemical writings; they were very clever and very witty; they
were vivacious and audacious; they were unfailingly interesting; and
they were read as eagerly as the 'Letters of Junius.' Personal at first,
the suits soon became political; and part of the public approval given
to the attack of Beaumarchais on judicial injustice was due no doubt to
the general discontent with the existing order in France. His daring
conduct of his own cause made him a personality. He was intrusted with
one secret mission by Louis XV; and when Louis XVI came to the throne,
he managed to get him again employed confidentially.
Not long after his two attempts at the serious drama, he had tried to
turn to account his musical faculty by writing both the book and the
score of a comic opera, which had, however, been rejected by the
Comédie-Italienne (the predecessor of the present Opéra Comique). After
a while Beaumarchais cut out his music and worked over his plot into a
five-act comedy in prose, 'The Barber of Seville.' It was produced by
the Théâtre Français in 1775, and like the contemporary 'Rivals' of
Sheridan,--the one English author with whom Beaumarchais must always be
compared,--it was a failure on the first night and a lasting success
after the author had reduced it and rearranged it. 'The Barber of
Seville' was like the 'Gil Blas' of Lesage in that, while it was
seemingly Spanish in its scenes, it was in reality essentially French.
It contained one of the strongest characters in literature,--Figaro, a
reincarnation of the intriguing servant of Menander and Plautus and
Molière. Simple in plot, ingenious in incident, brisk in dialogue,
broadly effective in character-drawing, 'The Barber of Seville' is the
most famous French comedy of the eighteenth century, with the single
exception of its successor from the same pen, which appeared nine
years later.
During those years Beaumarchais was not idle. Like Defoe, he was always
devising projects for money-making. A few months after 'The Barber of
Seville' had been acted, the American Revolution began, and Beaumarchais
was a chief agent in supplying the Americans with arms, ammunition, and
supplies. He had a cruiser of his own, Le Fier Roderigue, which was in
D'Estaing's fleet. When the independence of the United States was
recognized at last, Beaumarchais had a pecuniary claim against the young
nation which long remained unsettled.
Not content with making war on his own account almost, Beaumarchais
also undertook the immense task of publishing a complete edition of
Voltaire. He also prepared a sequel to the 'Barber,' in which Figaro
should be even more important, and should serve as a mouthpiece for
declamatory criticism of the social order. But his 'Marriage of Figaro'
was so full of the revolutionary ferment that its performance was
forbidden. Following the example of Molière under the similar
interdiction of 'Tartuffe,' Beaumarchais was untiring in arousing
interest in his unacted play, reading it himself in the houses of the
great. Finally it was authorized, and when the first performance took
place at the Théâtre Français in 1784, the crush to see it was so great
that three persons were stifled to death. The new comedy was as amusing
and as adroit as its predecessor, and the hits at the times were sharper
and swifter and more frequent. How demoralized society was then may be
gauged by the fact that this disintegrating satire was soon acted by the
amateurs of the court, a chief character being impersonated by Marie
Antoinette herself.
The career of Beaumarchais reached its climax with the production of the
second of the Figaro plays. Afterward he wrote the libretto for an
opera, 'Tarare,' produced with Salieri's music in 1787; the year before
he had married for the third time. In a heavy play called 'The Guilty
Mother,' acted with slight success in 1790, he brought in Figaro yet
once more. During the Terror he emigrated to Holland, returning to Paris
in 1796 to find his sumptuous mansion despoiled. May 18th, 1799, he
died, leaving a fortune of $200,000, besides numerous claims against the
French nation and the United States.
An interesting parallel could be drawn between 'The Rivals' and the
'School for Scandal' on the one side, and on the other 'The Barber of
Seville' and 'The Marriage of Figaro'; and there are also piquant points
of likeness between Sheridan and Beaumarchais. But Sheridan, with all
his failings, was of sterner stuff than Beaumarchais. He had a loftier
political morality, and he served the State more loyally. Yet the two
comedies of Beaumarchais are like the two comedies of Sheridan in their
incessant wit, in their dramaturgic effectiveness, and in the histrionic
opportunities they afford. Indeed, the French comedies have had a wider
audience than the English, thanks to an Italian and a German,--to
Rossini who set 'The Barber of Seville' to music, and to Mozart who did
a like service for 'The Marriage of Figaro.'
[Illustration: Signature: Brander Matthews]