SÉguedille de Beaumarchais

AMONG the numerous studies of the life of Beaumarchais which the admirable and scholarly work of M. de LomÉnie stimulated into being, none takes a higher place than that of EugÈne Lintilhac. Fired into enthusiasm by the work of LomÉnie, and having as he has said, his curiosity rather stimulated than satisfied thereby, he demanded of the descendants of Beaumarchais leave to examine for himself the entire mass of manuscript which had served as the foundation of that great work. He was also actuated, as he tells us, by the sentiment so forcibly expressed by Gudin, “I soon found that I could not love him moderately when I came to know him in his home,” and it was this sentiment which made him desire to refute from direct evidence some unsympathetic writings which had appeared, writings in which the character of Beaumarchais is inverted and all his great and disinterested actions viewed from the standpoint of whatever was ordinary about him, or whatever could be tortured into appearing so, thus making everything seem petty and contemptible, as when a telescope is reversed and all its power directed towards diminishing the objects upon which it is turned.

Many of the letters which we have already quoted were first published by him, and we shall have occasion, more than once to have recourse to his volume. In the family correspondence M. Lintilhac found several fragments of letters written by friends and especially by one M. de la Chataignerie, a man at that time well advanced in years, but devoted to the interests of his friend and who had been left with a certain oversight of the family. He wrote: “The dear sister, who though slightly indisposed, conserves her reason, at least so far as essentials go, begs you to bring everything that you find which is good in all the places where you pass, even the hams of Bayonne. Time presses because the little dog of a Boisgarnier drives me to despair, and beats me—it is true that I deserve no better. Adieu, adieu—deliver me from 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 certain fear of being taken at his word, because, although these letters contain a very formal offer of marriage, they also contain certain passages sufficiently mortifying, so that the pride of Pauline would reply by a refusal. Again it is evident that Beaumarchais fears a refusal and whether from love or self esteem he wishes to triumph.”

“You have renounced me,” he wrote to Pauline, “and what time have you chosen to do it? The very moment which I had announced to your friends and mine, would be that of our union. I have seen the perfidy which has caused everything to turn against me, even to my offers. I have seen you, you who have so often sighed at the injustice which others have done me, join yourself to them to create wrongs of which I never thought. If I had not had the intention of marrying you, would I have put so little form into the services which I rendered you? Would I have assembled your friends and mine two months before your refusal, to announce to them my resolution? Everything has turned against me. The conduct of a friend, two-faced and perfidious, in giving me a cruel lesson, has taught me that there is no woman so honest and so tender who cannot be seduced and made to change. Also the contempt of all those who have seen him act, is his just recompense. Let us come back to you. It is not without regret that I have turned my thoughts from you, since the first heat of my resentment has passed, and when I insisted that you should write formally that you refused my offer of marriage, there was mixed with my chagrin, an obscure curiosity to see whether you would take this last step with me; to-day I must know absolutely how I stand. I have received very advantageous propositions of marriage, on the point of accepting I felt myself suddenly arrested; I do not know what scruple of honor, what return toward the past, made me hesitate. I have every reason to feel myself free and disengaged from you after all that has passed; nevertheless, I am far from tranquil, your letters do not say formally enough what is most important for me to know. Reply truly, I beg of you. Have you so completely renounced me that I am free to contract with another woman? Consult your heart upon this point, while my delicacy questions you. If you totally have cut the knot which should unite us, don’t fear to tell me so. In order that your amour-propre be completely at ease upon the demand which I make, I add this, that in writing to you I have put back everything to where it was before all these storms. My demand would not be just if, setting a trap for you, I did not give you the liberty of choice in your reply. Let your heart answer alone. If you do not give me back my liberty, write me that you are the same Pauline, sweet and tender for life, whom I used to know, and that you believe yourself happy to belong to me, instantly I break with everything that is not you. If your heart is turned to another, and invincibly estranged from me, do me the justice of admitting that I have been honest with you. Give to the bearer of this, the declaration which frees me and I shall feel that I have accomplished my duty and shall have no reproach to make myself. Adieu, I am, up to the moment of your reply, under whatever title it shall please you to choose, Mademoiselle, your very humble servant, etc.

De Beaumarchais.”

A few hours later followed a second letter: “I send you back the package of your letters, if you keep them, join mine to your reply. The reading of your letters has moved me deeply, I do not wish again to experience that pain, but before replying examine well what is the best for you, as well for your fortune as for your happiness. My intent is that, forgetting everything, we pass our days in tranquillity and happiness. Do not let the fear of living with the members of my family who do not please you arrest your sensibility, if another passion has not extinguished it. My home is so arranged that whether it be you, or whether it be another, my wife shall be the peaceful and happy mistress there. Your uncle laughed in my face when I reproached him with having opposed me. He told me that his opinion was that I need not fear a refusal or else that his niece’s head had been turned. It is true that at the moment of renouncing you forever, I felt an emotion which showed me that I held more strongly to you than I thought. What I write therefore is from the sincerest faith in the world. Don’t flatter yourself ever to give me the chagrin to see you the wife of a certain man. He must be very daring to think of raising his eyes before the public if he proposes to accomplish this double perfidy. Pardon me if I grow warm! Never has that thought entered my mind that all my blood has not boiled in my veins.

“But whatever your resolution, don’t keep me waiting, because I have suspended all my business to give myself over once more to you. Your uncle tried to convince me that this marriage with you was not all to my advantage, but I am very far from occupying myself with these considerations. I wish to possess you only for yourself, and that it be for life.... I admit that it would be sweet to me, if while the enemies slept, peace should be concluded between us. Re-read your letters and you will understand that I found again in the depths of my heart all the sentiments that they had there called into being.”

LomÉnie remarks: “The reply of Pauline is much more laconic and much more direct. With her there is no conflict of sentiments: she does not love Beaumarchais any more; that is very simple and very clear.

“‘I can only repeat, Monsieur, what I said to Mademoiselle your sister, that my stand is taken not to return, therefore I thank you for your offers, and I desire with my whole heart that you may marry the person who will make you happy; I assured Mademoiselle your sister of this. My aunt and I feel it our duty to tell you how unhappy we are that you should fail in respect to us in treating so badly a man whom we consider as our friend. I know better than anyone else that you have no right to call him perfidious. I said once more this morning to Mademoiselle your sister, that a demoiselle who used to live with my aunt was the cause of what happens to-day. You have still several of my letters which I ask you to return. I will beg one of our friends to arrange with you about everything which remains to be adjusted. I am, very perfectly, Monsieur, your very humble and obedient servant,

L. B——.’”

Still quoting LomÉnie: “Pauline who used to sign herself, ‘I am for life thy faithful Pauline’ now signs politely her family name, and so this correspondence ends like so many others of the same nature, by, ‘I have the honor to be,’ or ‘I am very perfectly’ which succeed the protestations of an eternal love.”

And now follows a second letter from the cousin in relation to this unhappy affair, “All is said, my dear Beaumarchais, and without hope of return. I have notified Madame G. (the aunt of Pauline) and Mlle. Le B—— of your dispositions, they ask nothing better than to come to an honorable arrangement in this rupture. It remains now to regulate the account between Mlle. Le B—— and you, and to take measures to secure for you the sum which is due. These ladies beg you to give back all the papers which you have concerning the affairs of Mlle. Le B——. You cannot tell how unhappy I am not to have been able to unite two hearts which for so long have seemed to me made for each other, but man proposes and God disposes. I flatter myself that on both sides the justice which I feel belongs to me, will be rendered. I have let you read in my heart, and you must have seen that I know neither disguisement nor artifice. Adieu, my friend, I will go to see you as soon as I can; in the meantime write to me. I embrace you, I am as always,

“Your sincere friend P——
“February 11th, 1766—”

In the words of LomÉnie, “Let us accord this worthy cousin, whose sentences are more consoling than new, the justice which he claims, and acknowledge that he is a stranger to the perfidy of the Chevalier. If we were writing a romance we would stop here, or else end with the death of Beaumarchais, he killing himself in despair, or by the death of the Chevalier, immolated by the fury of his rival; but as we are writing a history we are obliged above all else to be exact and instead of stating that the adventure ends by a suicide or a duel we are forced to state that it terminates much more prosaically, by a rÈglement de comptes where the future author of the Mariage de Figaro makes an amusing enough figure in his rÔle of betrayed lover and uneasy creditor.”

There is, we must admit, an indefinable humor in the idea of the brilliant genius Beaumarchais, deserted by his Pauline, seating himself, le coeur gros, the tears of anger and mortification welling to his eyes, intent upon regulating, with the same minute exactitude that he showed in making the watch to be set as a jewel in a lady’s ring, the account existing between him and Pauline.

As a matter of fact, he had been far less prudent in his generous advances of money than in the expression of his sentiments as a lover, for not only had he risked large sums on the Santo Domingo property, but he had been in the habit of advancing money both to Pauline and to her aunt without keeping any special count. To return to the account of LomÉnie, “He groups the capital with the interest and presents a bill of the most scrupulous rectitude. The Chevalier, who has no time to bother with such vile details, and who has gone to pass his honeymoon I don’t know where, sends to Beaumarchais his older brother, the abbÉ du S——, respectable, but a little quick tempered, who not only quibbles over the bill, but permits himself sometimes to deepen a bleeding wound by opposing the lover to the creditor. From that come stormy discussions, of which the following letter of Beaumarchais to the abbÉ will serve as illustration.

“‘Monsieur l’abbÉ,

“‘I beg you to notice that I never have been lacking in politeness towards you, but that I owe nothing but contempt for him whom you represent, as I have had the honor of saying to you twenty times, and as I strongly would have desired to say to him if he had been as exact in showing himself as he has been clever in taking my place. The proof that Mlle. Le B—— wished well of me, of my affection, of my counsels, of my money, is that without your brother she would still make use of all my gifts which I lavished upon her as long as they were agreeable and useful to her. It is true that she bought my services very dear, since she owes to our affection for your brother the happiness of having married him, which she would not have done, if he had remained without knowing us in the place where he then vegetated. I do not understand the secret of the phrase about the apology, so I am dispensed with replying to it. I regret that he is absent, only because I would have the greatest pleasure to testify to him in person, what he can now only know through proxy. I shall not cease to prepare myself for atrocities and injustices by benevolent acts. It always has agreed with me very well to do good in the expectation of evil, and your counsel adds nothing to my disposition in that regard.

“‘Since you admit that you have lost your temper with me, it would be out of place for me to reproach you with it. It is sufficient that you accuse yourself, for me not to hold any resentment.

“‘I do not know why you have underlined the words, “your sister,” in recalling to me that I said that it was in this way that I loved Mlle. Le B——. Does this irony fall back on her, on me, or on your brother? Just as you please, for that matter. Although the fate of Mlle. Le B—— interests me no longer, it would be out of place for me, in speaking of her, to use other terms than those which I have employed. It is not her that I blame; she is as you have said, young and without experience and although she has very little fortune, your brother has used well his experience and has made a good affair in marrying her.

“‘Remember, I beg you, Monsieur l’abbÉ, that all which is addressed to him has nothing to do with you. It would be too humiliating for a man of your station to be suspected of having had any part in the perfidy of your brother in my regard; let him bear the blame, and do not take up those things which do not deserve to have a defender as honest as yourself.

“‘I have the honor to be, etc.

“‘Beaumarchais.’”

The matter finally was adjusted and the account reduced to 24,441 livres, 4 sous, 4 deniers.

One would almost think that after making such important reductions the sum might have been rounded off by the omission of the 4 sous, 4 deniers. Not so Beaumarchais—the whole debt might go unpaid for he was not a man to make much trouble about that, but in any case, the matter must stand in its absolute exactitude. M. de LomÉnie terminates this interesting chapter of the life of Beaumarchais in the following manner: “And now I demand pardon of the shade of the charming Pauline, but it seems certain that this debt, recognized and accepted by her, was never paid. Not only do I find it amongst papers of a later date classed as almost hopeless debts, but the touching solicitude of the cashier Gudin, after the death of his master, for the least letter of Pauline, is sufficient to demonstrate that this too must be ranged amongst those debts recognized but not dissolved, where so many amiable women, poets, and great lords have left their traces in the papers of Beaumarchais. It is true that Pauline was left a widow a year after her marriage, and this misfortune no doubt spoiled the arrangement of her affairs—and I conclude that if the young and beautiful Creole left her debt unpaid, it must have been because the habitation of Santo Domingo was seized by the other creditors, or plundered by the blacks or swallowed up by an earthquake.”

For our part let us hasten to add that we are very grateful to the Chevalier du S—— for carrying off Pauline. Charming as she was, she did not possess those sterling qualities which alone could have enabled her to be a real helpmeet to him in the terrible trials, which were preparing for him. Overwhelmed as we shall presently see him, a nature like hers would have been as a millstone about his neck, and he inevitably must have succumbed. As we shall see, the woman who eventually comes to share his life was of a very different mould. Misfortune and all the terrors of the Revolution only served to bring into more striking relief the vigor of a character already pronounced in its strength and womanliness.

Our gratitude to the Chevalier du S—— is no less great, in that by abstracting Pauline, he left to Beaumarchais the truest support of his life, the woman who better than any one else understood the inmost recesses of his nature, and who at no moment of his career failed in giving him the affection, the encouragement, which he needed, and that served as the solid basis upon which he could build. In leaving to Beaumarchais the undisputed possession of his sister Julie, the Chevalier du S—— has won our undying gratitude, and so in all sincerity we say, requiescat in pace.