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Pierre Beaumarchais

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Beaumarchais

Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais (January 24, 1732 – May 17-18, 1799) was a watch-maker, inventor, musician, politician, invalid, fugitive, spy, publisher, arms-dealer, and revolutionary (both French and American). He was best known, however, for his dramatic works, especially the three Figaro plays.

Humble beginnings

Beaumarchais was born Pierre-Augustin Caron to a watch-maker in Paris, the only boy of six children. Although not wealthy, the family was reasonably well-off and Caron spent his childhood in peace and happiness -- something that would prove to be in contrast with his adult life.

At age 13, Caron left school and began his apprenticeship under his father. A few years later, possibly between 1751 to 1753, he invented a new escape mechanism which enabled watches to be made substantially more accurate and compact than they had been up to that point. One of his greatest feats was a watch mounted on a ring for Madame de Pompadour, a mistress of Louis XV. The invention was later recognised by the Académie des sciences, but only after a trifle with M. Lepaute, the king's watch-maker, who attempted to pass off the invention as his own.

Business, politics, arts, and entertainment

His watch-making days, however, were short-lived, when other endeavors catapulted his fame and fortune. Between 1758-59, Caron became the harp tutor of King Louis XV's daughters. In 1759-60, Caron met M. Pâris-Duverney, an aging but wealthy entrepreneur who saw the young lad's potential in business. The two became very close friends, and collaborated on many business ventures. Caron adopted the name Beaumarchais in 1756-57, in reference to land, le Bois Marchais, inherited by his first wife, and started using the name Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais.

With generous financial assistance from Pâris-Duverney, Beaumarchais purchased an office of secretary-councillor to the King in 1760-61, conferring his nobility in the French court. In 1763, Beaumarchais purchased a second position, the office of Lieutenant General of Hunting. Beaumarchais travelled to Madrid in 1764 and spent ten months there, supposedly to help his sister, Lisette, who had been abandoned by her fiancé, Clavijo. But in fact he was mostly concerned with striking business deals for Pâris-Duverney. Although Beaumarchais returned to France with little profit, he had managed to acquire new experience, music and, more importantly, ideas for theatrical character.

Beaumarchais's Figaro and Almaviva first conceived in Le Sacritan which the playwright dubbed as an interlude, imitating the Spanish style, written in approximately 1765. His claim to fame, however, was achieved in his first dramatic play (drame bourgeois), Eugénie, which was premiered at the Comédie Française in 1767. This was followed by a second drama, Les Deux amis, in 1770.

Court battles and the American Revolution

The year 1770 also marked the beginning of a series of turmoil for Beaumarchais, with the death of his long-time business partner, Pâris-Duverney, on July 17. A few months before her death, the two entered a declaration which effectively cleared all debt carried by Beaumarchais (75,000 pounds), while receiving a small sum of 15,000 pounds. Pâris-Duverney's sole heir, the count de la Blanche, was jealous over the deceased relationship to Beaumarchais and took Beaumarchais to court, claiming the signed declaration was a forgery. Although the court verdict was in favour of Beaumarchais in 1772, it was overturned on appeal in 1773, with the help of magistrate Goezman, whose favour La Blanche managed to win over. To add insult to injury, Beaumachais was involved in a quarrel with the Duke de Chaulnes over the Duke's mistress, which resulted in Beaumarchais being thrown into jail from February to May, 1773. La Blanche and Goezman took advantage of Beaumarchais's absence in court, and ordered him to repay his debt to Pâris-Duverney with interest, as well as court fees, putting Beaumarchais in financial ruin.

To win over public support, Beaumarchais published a four-part pamphlet entitled Mémoires contre Goezman which, in pre-revolutionary France, made Beaumarchais an instant celebrity--a champion for social justice and liberty. Goezman countered Beaumarchais's accusations by launching a law suit of his own. The judge's verdict was equivocal. On February 26, 1774, the judges stripped both Beaumarchais and Mme. Goezman (who sympathised with Beaumarchais) of their civil rights, while Magistrate Goezman was removed from his post, and the judgement for the La Blanche case once again overturned to Beaumarchais's favour. The Goezman case brought such sensation in France, the judges escaped through the back door to avoid the large, angry mob waiting in front of the court house.

Beaumarchais pledged his services to Louis XV and XVI in order to restore his civil rights. He travelled to London, Amsterdam and Vienna to perform various secret services. His first mission was to travel to London to destroy a pamphlet, Les mémoires secrets d'une femme publique, which was said to have libeled one of Louis XV's mistresses, Mme. du Barry. However, he was remembered for his essential support for American Independence. He convinced Louis XVI to finance part of the supplies to the American revolutionaries by lying to him that Louis XV, before his death, was in favour of assisting the American Revolution. Louis XVI, who did not want to break openly with England, allowed Beaumarchais to found a commercial enterprise, Roderigue Hortalez and Co., supported by the French and Spanish crowns, to supply the American rebels with troops, weapons, munitions, clothes, and provisions. For his services, the French Parliament reinstated his civil rights in 1776.

The Voltaire revival

Voltaire died in 1778. Beaumarchais undertook the task of publishing Voltaire's complete works, many of which were censored in France. He scoured all of Europe to collect the scattered manuscripts of Voltaire. To escape French censorship, Beaumarchais set up printing presses in Kehl, Germany, and purchased paper mills for the purpose. Seven volumes were published Between 1783 to 1790. Though the venture turned out to be a financial failure, he was instrumental in preserving much of Voltaire's later works, which would have otherwise been lost forever.

More court battles and the French Revolution

It was not long before Beaumarchais crossed paths again with the French legal system. In 1787, Beaumarchais became acquainted with Mme. Korman, whose husband had her imprisoned for adultery to expropriate her dowry, although it was M. Korman who engineered the adultery to implicate both his wife and the lover. The whole affair was taken to court, with Beaumarchais on Mme. Korman's side, and M. Korman was assisted by a celebrity lawyer, Nicolas Bergasse. on April 2, 1790, M. Korman and Bergasse were found guilty for calumny, but Beaumarchais's reputation was also tarnished.

In the meantime, the French revolution broke out. Beaumarchais was no longer viewed as the idol he was a few years ago. He was financially successful (mainly from supplying drinking water to Paris), and had acquired ranks in the French nobility. In 1791, he took up a lavish residence across from the Bastille. He was sent to prison for less than a week in August 1792, but was released only three days before a massacre that took place at the prison.

Nevertheless, he pledged his service to the new Republic, by attempting to purchase 60,000 rifles for the Revolutionary Army, which became available in Holland. He was unable to deliver them, however. While he was out of the country, Beaumarchais was put on the list of émigrés (royalists, effectively) by his enemies. He spent two and a half years in exile, mostly in Germany, before his name was again taken off the list. He returned to Paris in 1796, and lived the remaining years of his life in relative peace. Beaumarchais died of apoplexy, and was buried in Le Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. He was 67.

Private life

Beaumarchais married thrice. His first wife was Madeleine-Catherine Franquet (née Aubertin), whom he married on November 22, 1756, but died of mysterious circumstances only 10 months after. He later married Genevièfve-Madeleine Lévêque (née Wattebled) in 1768. Again, the second Mme. de Beaumarchais died of mysterious circumstances two years later, though most scholars believed she actually suffered from tuberculosis. Beaumarchais had a son, Augustin, in 1770, only eight months after his second marriage, but he also shared the tragic fate as his mother, and died in 1772. Beaumarchais lived with his lover, Marie-Thérèse de Willer-Mawlaz, for twelve years, and had a daughter, Eugénie, before she became Beaumarchais's third wife, in 1786.

In his first two marriages, Beaumarchais was accused -- mainly by his enemies -- of poisoning them in order to lay claim to their family inheritance. Beaumarchais, though having no shortage of love interests, was known to marry for financial gain. Both Franquet and Aubertin were previously married to wealthy families prior to their marriage to Beaumarchais. While there was insufficient physical evidence to support the accusations, and that he was also known to be very caring for his family and close friends. Whether or not the poisonings took place is still subject of debate.

The Figaro plays

Beaumarchais's Figaro plays comprise "Le Barbier de Séville", "Le Mariage de Figaro", and "La Mère coupable". They were some of the most important French plays, for the trilogy spans the most turbulent period of French history. Figaro and Count Almaviva, the two characters Beaumarchais most likely conceived in his travels in Spain, were (with Rosine, later the Countess Almaviva) the only ones present in all three plays. They are indicative of the change in social attitudes before, during, and after the French Revolution. The two began in a formal master-and-servant (albeit light hearted) relationship, in Le Barbier; the two became rivals over Suzanne in Le Mariage, a personification of class struggle in pre-revolutionary France; and they finally join hands again to thwart the evil schemes of Bégearss, an attempt to call for reconciliation in La Mère. Further, Beaumarchais also dubbed La Mère "The Other Tartuffe", to pay homage to the great French playwright Molière, who wrote the original Tartuffe.

To a lesser degree, the Figaro plays are semi-autobiographical. Don Guzman Brid'oison (Le Mariage) and Bégearss (La Mère) were caricatures of two of Beaumarchais's real-life adversaries, Goezman and Bergasse. The page Chérubin (Le Mariage) resembled the youthful Beaumarchais, who did contemplate suicide when his love was to marry another. Suzanne, the heroine of Le Mariage and La Mère, was modelled after Beaumarchais's third wife, Marie-Thérèse de Willer-Mawlaz. Meanwhile, some of the Count monologues reflect on the playwright's remorse of his numerous sexual exploits.

Le Barbier premiered in 1775. Its sequel Le Mariage was initially passed by the censor in 1781, but was soon banned from performance by Louis XVI after a private reading. The King was unhappy with the play's satire on the aristocracy. Over the next three years Beaumarchais gave many private readings of the play, as well as making revisions to try to pass the censor. The King lifted the ban in 1784. The play premiered that year and was enormously popular even with aristocratic audiences. Mozart's opera premiered just two years later. The final play, La mère was premiered in 1792 in Paris. All three plays enjoyed great success, and they are still frequently performed today, at theatres and opera houses. 


              The staging of “The Marriage of Figaro’

         Beaumarchais faced a significant amount of trouble when it came to staging both ‘‘The Barber of Seville’’ as well as ‘‘The Marriage of Figaro’’. ‘Barber’, which was to have been produced in 1773, had to be postponed because nobody in the theatre could afford to give Beaumarchais, then beset by scandal and imprisonment. It was eventually produced in February 1775. However, he faced trouble of a rather different kind when it came to ‘Marriage’. The play came under heavy displeasure from Louis XVI, who considered it incendiary and a threat to the stability of the class system.
           This censure was not without reason, as the play contained within it, an aggressive attack on old feudal practices such as the hereditary principle, which formed the foundation of the Monarchy and its surrounding socio-political structures. . Figaro’s provocative monologue in Act V contained many radical ideas and attitudes that would provide fodder for the subversive feelings already sweeping through France at the time. John Wells, who translated the play for a 1974 Jonathan Miller production, pointed out the dangerous parallels the play offered. “The Count, having renounced his droit du seigneur, his absolute power over his subjects, is trying illicitly to re-establish it. Louis XVI, vacillating over the liberal reforms that Beaumarchais believed would lead to constitutional monarchy, behaved in exactly the same way.”  There is little wonder that Napoleon later described the play as ‘the Revolution in action’.
            The idea of ‘Marriage’, as we can make out from references to Figaro’s family affairs in ‘Barber’, dates as far back as the earlier play. It seems probable that Beaumarchais completed it by about 1778, and read it to the members of the Comedie Francaise in 1781, where it was accepted, and was passed by the censor with only minor modifications. However, it would be three years before the Parisian public got to see it. Having heard rumours about its satirical content, Marie Antoinette, who was a great admirer of Beaumarchais’s work, arranged for a private reading in front of the King. The plan backfired, when Louis, following the play closely with comments of praise or disapproval, eventually became appalled by the play’s irreverent attitude towards the aristocracy, especially during Figaro’s monologue, during which he leapt up and uttered, with prophetic insight, “For this play not to be a danger, the Bastille would have to be torn down first.” , and banned the play from being performed.
            The King’s ban only added to the appeal of play for many, and Beaumarchais received several requests for private readings, and while he was willing to comply, he was also prudent enough to edit the text, transfer the setting to Spain, and submit it to the censor, though he was refused approval. Arrangements were made for the members of the Comedie Francaise to give the play in hall of the Menus Plaisirs in honour of the King’s brother, the Count of Artois, but this was forbidden at the last moment by the King, who sent that even the aristocracy were not permitted to watch this notorious piece. Predictably, this only increased the demand to see it staged, and a further private performance was managed at the château at Gennevilliers on 26 September 1783. The hall was so crammed with the gentry that Beaumarchais had to break a few windows to let air into the stuffy auditorium- an act recognized even then as being symbolic. The success of the performance increased the pressure to release it for public performance, and it was also the approbation of the theatre going public of Paris that Beaumarchais really desired most. A fourth censor condemned the play, a fifth approved with reservations, a sixth approved unconditionally, and after Beaumarchais was permitted to read to the play to Breteuil, the Royal Minister and an assembled company of leading arbiters of literary taste, he won them over with the wit of the play and his own charming delivery. The king grudgingly allowed a production to go ahead. The landmark production was staged on 27 April 1784 in the newly renovated theatre of the Comedie Francaise. The alternative title to the play- ‘La Folle Journee’, or ‘The Crazy Day’ seemed an apt description of the first night. The rage to see it was so great that ladies of the nobility and women of the bourgeoisie had been sharing actresses’ dressing rooms since the previous night to ensure seats, while others lunched within the auditorium itself. As the time of the performance grew close, the crowds outside the theatre swept aside the guards and forced the gates, causing several ladies to faint. Less than half of them managed to get seats. Every minister was present, along with the brothers of the King, but unsurprisingly, Louis himself was absent. Beaumarchais, meanwhile, prudently arranged for two abbes to sit on either side of him, in order to indicate the serious moral intent in his work.
           The production lasted from half past five to ten o’clock, interrupted by frequent laughter and applause. Dazincourt, as Figaro, and Louise-Francoise as Suzanne were immediate hits with the audience, but the real success of the evening was Jeanne-Adelaide Olivier’s mischievous Cherubin. The quality of the performance was heightened by the use for the first time of oil-lamps, which gave the stage an unprecedented brightness, and avoided the stagehands having to trim candlewicks repeatedly. 
           The play ran for sixty- eight successive performances, and the gross receipts

Amounted to 347,000 livres, the greatest success of the century. Beaumarchais donated his share of 41,000 livres to charity. At this pinnacle of success, however, he had a sharp reminder of the arbitrary nature of royal power. A comment of his about the difficulties of getting the play onstage was carried to the King and represented as criticism of himself and the Queen. Beaumarchais was summarily arrested and confined to St Lazare, a correctional facility for delinquent youth. He was free within five days, though, and the first performance after his release was the occasion for a great demonstration of sympathy by an audience, which included most of the King’s ministers. 

           The irony of the entire episode lay in the fact that this piece was executed, not just with the acquiescence, but the full support of the aristocracy, that same class whose right to govern was so radically challenged within this very play itself. The unforeseen and far-reaching consequences of this almost suicidal connivance of the aristocracy are well documented and observed. Beaumarchais’s play remains one of the foundation stones of the revolutionary fervour in France. As Michael Billington remarks in an article in The Guardian, “When people question, as they constantly do, the political potency of theatre, they should always remember the shining example of Beaumarchais.”

List of works

Listing of related works

Further reading

  • "Beaumarchais and the American Revolution" by Brian N. Morton
  • "From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life - 1500 to Present" by Jacques Barzun
  • "Beaumarchais: Le Mariage de Figaro - comédie", with preface, biography, and annotations by Pol Gillard, Bordas, 1970.
  • "Beaumarchais: The three Figaro plays", translation and notes by David Edney, Doverhouse, 2000.
  • "Proud destiny" by Lion Feuchtwanger, a novel based mainly on Beaumarchais and Benjamin Franklin, and their involvement in the American Revolution, Viking, 1947.
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