Le Barbier De SÉville—

“J’ai donc eu la faiblesse autrefois, Monsieur, de faire des drames qui n’etaient pas du bon genre; et je m’en repens beaucoup.

“PressÉ depuis, par les ÉvÉnements, j’ai hasardÉ de malheureux mÉmoires que mes ennemis n’ont pas trouvÉs de bon style; j’en ai le remords cruel.

“Aujourd’hui je fais glisser sous vos yeux, une comÉdie fort gaie, que certains maÎtres de goÛt n’estiment pas du bon ton; et je ne m’en console point.

...

“Je ne voudrais pas jurer qu’il en fut seulement question dans cinq ou six siÈcles; tant notre nation est inconstante et lÉgÈre.”

PrÉface du Barbier de SÉville.

ASIDE from Beaumarchais’s participation in the affairs of the War of American Independence, the chief title to glory which his admirers can claim for him is his creation of the character of Figaro.

“Certainly no comic personage,” says Gudin, “has more the tone, the esprit, the gaiety, the intelligence, the lightness, that kind of insouciance and intrepid self-confidence which characterizes the French people.”

So long and lovingly had Beaumarchais carried about with him this child of his esprit, that the two at last practically had become one. Gudin says, “The handsome, the gay, the amiable Figaro, daring and philosophical, making sport of his masters and not able to get on without them, murmuring under the yoke and yet bearing it with gaiety” is no other than Beaumarchais in person. “Welcomed in one city, imprisoned in another, and everywhere superior to events, praised by these, blamed by those, enduring evil, making fun of the stupid, braving the wicked, laughing at misery and shaving all the world, you see me at last in Seville.”

“Le Comte—‘Who gave thee so gay a philosophy?’

“Figaro—‘The habit of misfortune, I hasten to laugh at everything for fear of being obliged to weep.’ (‘Le Barbier de SÉville,’ Act I, Scene II) or again—

“Le Comte—‘Do you write verses, Figaro?’

“Figaro—‘That is precisely my misfortune, your Excellency. When it became known to the ministers that I sent enigmas to the journals, that madrigals were afloat of my making, in a word that I had been printed alive, they took it tragically, and deprived me of my position under the pretext that the love of letters is incompatible with l’esprit des affaires.’”

When Figaro re-appears a few years later, we shall see all his characteristics intensified in proportion as the experiences and success of Beaumarchais had heightened his daring and address.

We must not make the mistake however of identifying Beaumarchais with his creation, for to create Figaro required one greater than he. There is undoubtedly a strongly developed Figaro side to Beaumarchais’s nature and it is this which always had prevented him from being taken seriously, and which made him an unfathomable being even to those very persons who depended upon and profited most by his rare gifts.

With such limitless resources, such power of combination, such insight, incapable of taking offense at any injury, so generous, forgiving, laughing at misfortune, how could he be taken seriously? With Beaumarchais, as with Figaro, it is the very excess of his qualities and gifts which alarms. As one of his biographers has said, “What deceives is, that in seeing Figaro display so much esprit, so much daring, we involuntarily fear that he will abuse his powers in using them for evil; this fear is really a kind of homage; Figaro in the piece, like Beaumarchais in the world, gives a handle to calumny but never justifies it. The one and the other never interfere except for good, and if they love intrigue it is principally because it gives them occasion to use their esprit.”

The first conception of Figaro dates very far back in the history of Beaumarchais. Already before his return from Spain the character was beginning to take form in his mind. Its first appearance was in a farce produced at the ChÂteau d’Étioles. We have spoken already of its rejection by the ComÉdie des Italiens, after it had assumed the form of a comic opera. Made over into a drama, it had soon after been accepted by the ThÉÂtre-FranÇais.

It will perhaps be remembered that following the frightful adventure with the duc de Chaulnes, Beaumarchais had spent the evening of that same day in reading his play to a circle of friends. It had at that time passed the censor and had been approved. Permission for its presentation had been signed by M. de Sartine, then lieutenant of police, and it was advertised for the thirteenth of February of that year, 1773. The affair with the Duke happened on the 11th, two days before the piece was to be performed. The difficulties which immediately followed were of a nature to cause the performance to be postponed indefinitely.

A year later, however, when the great success of the memoirs of Beaumarchais had made him so famous, “the comedians,” says LomÉnie, “wished to profit by the circumstance. They solicited permission to play the Barbier de SÉville.”

But the police, fearing to find in it satirical allusions to the suit then in progress, caused a new censorship to be appointed, before permission could be obtained. Their report was, “The play has been censored with the greatest rigor but not a single word has been found which applies to the present situation.”

The representation was announced for Saturday, the 12th of February, 1774. Two days before this date, however, came an order from the authorities which prohibited the presentation. The noise had gone abroad that the piece had been altered and that it was full of allusions to the suit. Beaumarchais denied this rumor in a notice which terminates thus:

“I implore the court to be so good as to order that the manuscript of my piece, as it was consigned to the police a year ago, and as it was to be performed, be presented; I submit myself to all the rigor of the ordinances if in the context, or in the style of the work, anything be found which has the faintest allusion to the unhappy suit which M. GoËzman has raised against me and which would be contrary to the profound respect which I profess for the parliament.

“Caron de Beaumarchais”

The prohibition was not removed and the piece was not presented until after the return of the author from Vienna in December, 1774.

“He then obtained permission,” says LomÉnie, “to have his Barbier played. Between the obtaining of the permission and the presentation he put himself at his ease; his comedy had been prohibited because of pretended allusions which did not exist; he compensated himself for this unjust prohibition by inserting precisely all the allusions which the authorities feared to find in it and which were not there. He reinforced it with a great number of satirical generalities, with a host of more or less audacious puns. He added a good many lengthy passages, increased it by an act and overcharged it so completely that it fell flat the day of its first appearance before the public.”

The defeat was all the more striking because of the fame of the author; the public curiosity so long kept in abeyance had brought such a crowd to the first presentation as had never before been equalled in the annals of the theater.

“Never,” says Grimm, “had a first presentation attracted so many people.” The surprise of himself and his friends was extreme, for Beaumarchais instead of applause received the hisses of the parterre. Anyone else might have been discouraged, or at least disturbed by so unexpected a turn, not so Beaumarchais.

In his own account of the defeat, wittily told in the famous preface to the Barbier, published three months later, he says, “The god of Cabal is irritated; I said to the comedians with force, ‘Children, a sacrifice here is necessary,’ and so giving the devil his part, and tearing my manuscript, ‘god of the hissers, spitters, coughers, disturbers,’ I cried, ‘thou must have blood, drink my fourth act and may thy fury be appeased.’ In the instant you should have heard that infernal noise which made the actors grow pale, and falter, weaken in the distance and die away.” But Beaumarchais did more than simply renounce an act, he set instantly to work to rearrange and purify the whole play.

“Surely it is no common thing,” says LomÉnie, “to see an author pick up a piece justly fallen, and within twenty-four hours ... transform it so that it becomes a charming production, full of life and movement....”

At its second production, “everyone laughed, and applauded from one end to the other of the piece; its cause was completely gained.” (Gudin)

What Beaumarchais did, was to restore the piece to about the form which had been approved and signed by the censors.

Some of the best of the satirical portions which are to be found in the printed play, nevertheless, were inserted before the first presentation, these he dared to retain in the final form.

In accounting for its fall, Gudin says, “A superabundance of esprit produced satiety and fatigued the audience. Beaumarchais then set about pruning his too luxuriantly branching tree, pulled off the leaves which hid the flowers—thus allowing one to taste all the charm of its details.”

As might be expected, the success of the play after its first presentation produced a storm of opposition; critics and journals vied with each other to prove to the public that they had again been deceived. Gudin says, “His facility to hazard everything and receive applause awakened jealousy and unchained against him cabals of every kind.”

In the brilliant preface already alluded to, which Beaumarchais published with the play after its success was established, he allowed himself the pleasure of mocking, not only at the journalists and critics, but at the public itself. “You should have seen,” he wrote, “the feeble friends of the Barbier, dispersing themselves, hiding their faces, or disappearing; the women, always so brave when they protect, burying themselves in hoods, and lowering their confused eyes; the men running to make honorable amends for the good they had said of my piece and throwing the pleasure which they had taken in it upon my execrable manner of reading things. Some gazing fixedly to the right when they felt me pass to the left, feigned not to see me, others more courageous, but looking about to assure themselves that no one saw them, drew me into a corner to ask, ‘Eh? how did you produce such an illusion? Because you must admit my friend that you have produced the greatest platitude in the world.’”

Beaumarchais could afford to indulge in such pleasantries, for his piece was not only continuing to draw vast crowds, but it had begun already a triumphant progress over Europe. In St. Petersburg alone it went through fifty representations.

But the revenge of Beaumarchais did not stop here; most of the cuttings which he had been forced to make in the play, the witticisms, jests and tirades were far too good to be lost. He saved them for future use and made the public laugh over and applaud what it first hissed. When Figaro made his second appearance, on the mad day of his marriage, he used them nearly all. Beaumarchais’s revenge then was complete. But while waiting for this, he had the audacity to make the comedians themselves mock at their own playing, as we shall see presently.

The story of the Barbier de SÉville is of the simplest: “Never,” says Lintilhac, “did any one make a better thing out of nothing.”

A young nobleman, the count Almaviva, tired of the conquests which interest, convention, and vanity make so easy, has left Madrid to follow to Seville a charming, sweet, and fresh young girl Rosine, with whom he has never been able to exchange a word owing to the constant oversight of her guardian, the Doctor Bartholo, who is on the point of marrying her and securing to himself her fortune. In the words of Figaro, the doctor is a “beautiful, fat, short, young, old man, slightly gray, cunning, sharp, cloyed, who watches, ferrets, scolds and grumbles all at the same time and so naturally inspires only aversion in the charming Rosine.” The count, on the contrary, is a sympathetic figure, who, although disguised as a student and only seen from afar, has already won the heart of the young girl.

Figaro, the gay and resourceful barber to Bartholo has long ago succeeded in making himself indispensable to the latter and to his whole household, while at the same time taking advantage of the avarice and cunning of the doctor and turning them to his own account. It is he who recognizes the disguise of the student, his old master, the count Almaviva, loitering under Rosine’s window, and offers his services in outwitting the doctor whose arrangements are made for the consummation of his marriage on that self-same day.

It is no easy matter which he here undertakes, for with all his resourcefulness, Figaro has to deal with a suspicious old man, subtle and cunning, who is almost as resourceful as himself.

The count obtains entrance to the house as a music teacher sent by Rosine’s usual instructor whom the count announces as ill.

A most amusing scene ensues when Basile, the true instructor, appears, unconscious that he has a substitute and where, by the quick wit of the others, even the old doctor is made to laugh him out of the house, before the situation is spoiled. Basile goes, utterly mystified by the whole proceeding, but carrying with him “one of the irresistible arguments with which the count’s pockets are always filled.”

The embroglio thickens. Although Bartholo is constantly on his guard and suspicious of everyone, especially of Figaro, the latter succeeds in getting the key to Rosine’s lattice from the old man’s possession, almost under his very eyes, and then shows it to him, but at a moment when Bartholo is too much taken up with watching the new music teacher to notice the key, or the gesture of Figaro.

In the end, it is by the very means which Bartholo has taken to outwit the others, that the count succeeds in replacing him by the side of Rosine, and leading her before the notary, who arrives, after he has been sent for by Doctor Bartholo. The ceremony is concluded, as the doctor arrives on the scene. The fury of the latter is appeased, however, when he learns that he may keep the fortune of Rosine, while the count leads her off triumphant, happy in the “sweet consciousness of being loved for himself.”

It is to be sure an old, old story, but made into something quite new by the genius of the author. The situation of Basile in the third act, as already described, is absolutely without precedent, while numerous other scenes offer a comique difficult to surpass.

“The style lends wings to the action,” says Lintilhac, “and is so full and keen that the prose rings almost like poetry while his phrases have become proverbs.”

Perhaps the most remarkable passage of the whole play is that upon slander, which Beaumarchais puts into the mouth of Basile,

“Slander, sir! You scarcely know what you are disdaining. I have seen the best of men almost crushed under it. Believe me, there is no stupid calumny, no horror, not an absurd story that one cannot fasten upon the idle people of a great city if one only begins properly, and we have such clever folks!

“First comes a slight rumor, skimming the ground like a swallow before the storm, pianissimo, it murmurs and is gone, sowing behind its empoisoned traits.

“Some mouth takes it up, and piano, piano, it slips adroitly into the ear. The evil is done, it germinates, it grows, it flourishes, it makes its way, and rinforzando, from mouth to mouth it speeds onward; then suddenly, no one knows how, you see slander, erecting itself, hiss, swell, and grow big as you gaze. It darts forward, whirls, envelops, tears up, drags after it, thunders and becomes a general cry; a public crescendo, a universal chorus of hatred and proscription.”

The Barbier de SÉville had gone through thirteen presentations when the time arrived for the closing of the theater for the three weeks before Easter. It was a time-honored custom on this occasion for one of the actors to come forward after the last performance was over, and deliver a discourse which was called the compliment de clÔture. “Beaumarchais,” says LomÉnie, “lover of innovation in everything, had the idea of replacing this ordinarily majestic discourse by a sort of proverb of one act, which should be played in the costumes of the Barbier.” In explaining the composition of the proverb he says further, “It has not been sufficient for Beaumarchais to restore to the ThÉÂtre-FranÇais some of the vivid gaiety of the olden time,—he wished for more, he desired not only that the people be made to laugh immoderately, but that one should sing in the theater of Messieurs les comÉdiens du roi.” This was an enormity and essentially contrary to the dignity of the ComÉdie-FranÇaise. Nevertheless, as Beaumarchais had an obstinate will, the comedians to please him undertook to sing at the first representation the airs introduced into the Barbier; but whether the actors acquitted themselves badly at this unaccustomed task, or whether it was that the public did not like the innovation, all the airs were hissed without pity and it had been necessary to suppress them in the next presentation. There was one air in particular to which the author was strongly attached; it was the air of spring sung by Rosine in the third act. “Quand dans la plaine,” etc. The amiable actress, Mademoiselle Doligny, who had created the rÔle of Rosine, little used to singing in public, and still less to being hissed, refused absolutely to recommence the experiment and Beaumarchais had been forced to resign himself to the sacrifice of the air.

But as in everything he only sacrificed himself provisionally.

At the approach of the day of the clÔture, he proposed to the comedians to write for them the compliment which it was the custom to give, but on condition that they sing his famous air which he proposed to bring into the compliment, that was to be played by all the actors of the Barbier.

As Mademoiselle Doligny still refused to sing the bit in question, Beaumarchais suppressed the rÔle of Rosine, and replaced it by the introduction of another actress more daring, who sang very agreeably, namely, Mademoiselle Luzzi.

This amusing proverb in the style of the Barbier had a great success and the delicious little spring song as sung by Mademoiselle Luzzi received at last its just applause. In the scene in which it was produced the daring author has dialogued thus:

Scene III

Mlle. Luzzi—“Very well, gentlemen, isn’t the compliment given yet?”

Figaro—“It’s worse than that, it isn’t made.”

Mlle. Luzzi—“The compliment?”

Bartholo—“A miserable author had promised me one, but at the instant of pronouncing it, he sent us word to serve ourselves elsewhere.”

Mlle. Luzzi—“I am in the secret, he is annoyed that you suppressed in his piece his air of spring.”

Bartholo—“What air of spring? What piece?”

Mlle. Luzzi—“The little air of Rosine in the Barbier de SÉville.”

Bartholo—“That was well done, the public does not want any one to sing at the ComÉdie-FranÇaise.”

Mlle. Luzzi—“Yes, Doctor, in tragedies; but when did it wish that a gay subject should be deprived of what might increase its agreeableness? Believe me, gentlemen, Monsieur le Public likes anything which amuses him.”

Bartholo—“More than that is it our fault if Rosine lost courage?”

Mlle. Luzzi—“Is it pretty, the song?”

Le Comte—“Will you try it?”

Figaro—“In a corner under your breath.”

Mlle. Luzzi—“But I am like Rosine, I shall tremble.”

Le Comte—“We will judge if the air might have given pleasure.”

Mlle. Luzzi sings.

Le Comte—“Very pretty, on my honor.”

Figaro—“It is a charming song.”

Beaumarchais was so far content. He had proved his point and had triumphed over friends and enemies alike. A far more difficult matter remained, however, to be settled. It was one that would have frightened a less intrepid character than that of our author, but obstacles, as we have seen in many previous instances, only served to strengthen his determination to conquer, which in this instance, as in most others, he did in the end.

When Beaumarchais demanded of the ThÉÂtre-FranÇais a statement verified and signed as to his share of the profits from the representation of the Barbier de SÉville, no one knew better than he the magnitude of the innovation which he was committing.

The alarmed comedians, who had never in their lives made out an accurate account and who had not the remotest intention of yielding to the demand, endeavored by every possible means to put him off. The money that they sent and the unsigned memoranda which accompanied it, were all promptly but politely returned with the reiterated statement, most obligingly and cleverly turned and always in some new form, that it was not the money which was wanted, but a verified and signed account which could serve as a model for all future occasions, when it became a matter of business transaction between authors and comedians.

For fifteen years he pursued his object with unfaltering perseverance. Unable to establish a new order of things under the old rÉgime, we shall find him in 1791 presenting a petition in regard to the rights of authors to the AssemblÉe Nationale.

But to return to the Barbier de SÉville, let us anticipate a period of ten years and accompany Beaumarchais to a representation of this famous piece played upon another stage than that of the ThÉÂtre-FranÇais, and by actors very different from the comedians of the king.

It was in 1785. The aristocracy of France, all unconscious of what they were doing towards the undermining of the colossal structure of which they formed the parts, were bent upon one thing only and that was amusement.

From the insupportable rÉgime which etiquette enforced, Marie Antoinette fled the vast palace of Versailles on every possible occasion, seeking refuge in her charming and dearly loved retreat, the Petit-Trianon.

In the semi-seclusion of her palace and its adjoining pleasure grounds, her rÔle of queen was forgotten. It was there that she amused herself with her ladies of honor, in playing at being shepherdess, or dairy maid. Whatever ingenuity could devise to heighten the illusion, was there produced. Innocent and harmless sports one might say, and in itself that was true, but for a Queen of France! A queen claiming still all the advantages of her rank, renouncing only what was burdensome and dull! Innocent she was, of all the crimes that calumnies imputed to her, and of what crimes did they not try to make her appear guilty; but innocent in the light of history she was not. More than any other victim perhaps of the French Revolution, she brought her doom upon herself. The sublimity, however, with which she expiated to the uttermost those thoughtless follies of her youth, enables us to pardon her as woman, though as queen, we must recognize that her fate was inevitable.

But in 1785, mirth and gaiety still reigned in the precinct of the Petit-Trianon. In August of the year Marie Antoinette who had always protected Beaumarchais, wishing to do him a signal honor had decided to produce upon the little stage of her palace theater the Barbier de SÉville.

In his Fin de l’ancien RÉgime, Imbert de Saint-Amand gives the following narration of that strange incident.

“Imagine who was to take the part of Rosine, that pretty little mignonne, sweet, tender, affable, fresh and tempting, with furtive foot, artful figure, well formed, plump arms, rosy mouth, and hands! and cheeks! and teeth! and eyes! (Le Barbier de SÉville, Act II, Scene 2). Yes, this part of Rosine, this charming child, thus described by Figaro, was to be played by whom? By the most imposing and majestic of women, the queen of France and Navarre.

“The rehearsals began under the direction of one of the best actors of the ComÉdie-FranÇaise, Dazincourt, who previously had obtained a brilliant success in the Mariage de Figaro. It was during the rehearsals that the first rumor of the terrible affair of the diamond necklace reached the Queen. Nevertheless she did not weaken.—Four days after the arrest of the Cardinal de Rohan, grand-almoner of France, Marie Antoinette appeared in the rÔle of Rosine.

“Beaumarchais was present. The rÔle of Figaro was taken by the Comte d’Artois....

“A soirÉe, certainly the most singular. At the very hour when so many catastrophes were preparing, was it not curious to hear the brother of Louis XVI, the Comte d’Artois, cry out in the language of the Andalusian barber, ‘Faith, Monsieur, who knows whether the world will last three weeks longer?’ (Act III, Scene 5). He the zealous partisan of the old rÉgime, he the future ÉmigrÉ, he the prince who would one day bear the title of Charles X, it was he who uttered such democratic phrases as these: ‘I believe myself only too happy to be forgotten, persuaded that a great lord has done us enough good, when he has done us no harm.’ (Act I, Scene 2)

“‘From the virtues required in a domestic, does your Excellency know many masters who are worthy of being valets?’ (Act I, Scene 2)

“Was there not something like a prediction in these words of Figaro in the mouth of the brother of Louis XVI, ‘I hasten to laugh at everything for fear of being obliged to weep’? (Act I, Scene 2)

“Ah, let Marie Antoinette pay attention and listen! At this moment when the affair of the necklace begins, would not one say that all the maneuvers of her calumniators were announced to her by Basile: ‘Calumny, Sir....’ Beautiful and unfortunate Queen, on hearing that definition of the crescendo of calumny would she not turn pale?

“With this representation of the Barbier de SÉville, ended the private theatricals of the Petit-Trianon. What was preparing was the drama, not the fictitious drama, but the drama real, the drama terrible, the drama where Providence reserved to the unhappy queen the most tragic, the most touching of all the rÔles....” (For the full details of this fatal affair of the diamond necklace, see L’ancien RÉgime, by Imbert de Saint-Amand.)

Little did Beaumarchais realize the part he was playing in the preparation for that great drama. The gay utterances of his Figaro were the utterances of the mass of the people of France. Through Beaumarchais, the Tiers État was at last finding a voice and rising to self-consciousness; it was rising also to a consciousness of the effete condition of all the upper strata of society. Hence the wild enthusiasm with which these productions were greeted, an enthusiasm in which the aristocracy themselves joined, eager as the populace to laugh, for exactly the same reason as Figaro, so that they might not be obliged to weep.