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“Je passe encore sous silence la scène dégoûtante entre deux hommes où vous vous êtes égaré jusqu’à me reprocher que je n’étais que le fils d’un horloger. Moi qui m’honore de mes parents. …”

Beaumarchais au Duc de Chaulnes, 1771

Early life—Trained by his Father to the Trade of Watchmaker—Invents an Escapement for Watches—First Lawsuit—Horloger du Roi—Enters the Court of Versailles as Contrôleur clerc d’office—First Marriage—Assumes the Name of Beaumarchais—Death of his Wife—Becomes Music Master to the Princesses of France—Attracts the Attention of Paris du Verney

IT was on the twenty-fourth day of January, 1732, in an inconspicuous watchmaker’s shop on the rue St. Denis in Paris, that the child first saw the light who was baptized Pierre-August and whose family name was Caron. He was the seventh of ten children, six of whom were girls, but as his brothers all died in infancy he was the only son of the household and consequently its idol.

Formed by nature for fun and frolic, the little “Pierrot” as he was called had the merriest possible childhood. His mother gentle, loving, and indulgent shielded her favorite from his father, who at times was somewhat stern, while his elder sisters petted and spoiled him, and the younger ones entered heartily into his games and pastimes. Two of the girls were younger than he, the one nearest his age, Julie, was his favorite, and was also the one who most resembled him by her talents and her native wit and gaiety. It is from her pen that we have most of the details of their early life. In some of her youthful rhymes Julie tells us how “Pierrot” commanded a band of little good-for-nothings, roving about either to plunder the larder of Margot, the cook, or returning at night to disturb the slumber of the peaceful inhabitants of the rue St. Denis. Again in inharmonious verse she recounts how—

“Upon an incommodious seat Arranged in form of a pagoda Caron presents a magistrate, By his huge wig and linen collar. Each one pleads with might and main, Before that judge inexorable That nothing will appease, Whose only pleasure is to rain Upon his clients ever pleading Blows of fist and tongs and shovel; And the hearing never ends, Till wigs and bonnets roll away In dire confusion and disorder.”

But it must not be thought that the elder Caron approved of too much levity. Although he was himself witty and gifted with a keen literary and artistic sense, he was above all a serious man with an earnest purpose in life. He was descended from Huguenot ancestors who had managed to live in France after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, although they no longer possessed a legal existence. Their religious exercises were performed in caves or dark woods or in some desert spot. Here their marriages were solemnized by wandering ministers. The grandparents of Pierre-August, Daniel Caron and Marie Fortain, had been thus united, but their son, André-Charles Caron, shortly before his marriage with Louise Picheon in 1722, abjured his faith and joined himself to the Catholic Church. He retained, however, his Calvinistic character.

André-Charles Caron, like his father, was a watchmaker by profession. He was one of those exquisitely skilled French workmen who had done so much for the advancement of science in their own country, and who, when driven into exile, made the fortune of the people among whom they sought refuge, notably the Swiss. Not content with the exercise of his profession alone, the penetrating mind of André-Charles Caron led him into extensive scientific investigations so that he came to be looked upon as an authority in many branches of mechanics.

At ten years of age the young Pierre-August was sent by his father to a professional school at Alfort, where he learned the rudiments of Latin, but three years later his father brought him home intent on his becoming a watchmaker.

In the years that followed there was a period of stress and storm during which father and son wrestled for mastery. Always when the latter worked he showed a dexterity of touch, an ingenuity of invention which astonished the father; but, on the other hand, his escapades away from home were the despair of the stern watchmaker. The young Caron, full of wit, of song, skillful in tricks and gay of humor, attracted a following of youths whose tendencies were toward a loose life and low morals.

For five long years the struggle continued between the father and his brilliantly gifted son. Promises of amendment on the one hand and paternal pardon on the other had led to nothing. Finally, since remonstrance proved in vain, the elder Caron resorted to sterner measures: he turned his son into the street and closed his doors against him. He left open to the boy, nevertheless, one way of return. Friends of the family in secret communication received the lad, who soon showed a sincere desire to be restored to the good graces of his father. The Père Caron, at first inexorable, at length relented so far as to write the following letter, which is still in existence:

“I have read and re-read your letter. M. Cottin has shown me the one which you have written to him. They seem to me wise and reasonable. The sentiments which you therein express would be entirely to my taste if it were in my power to believe them durable, for I suppose that they possess a degree of sincerity with which I should be satisfied. But your great misfortune consists in having entirely lost my confidence; nevertheless, the friendship and esteem which I entertain for the three respectable friends whom you have employed, the gratitude which I owe them for their kindness to you, force from me my consent in spite of myself, although I believe there are four chances to one against your fulfilling your promises. From this, you will judge the irreparable stain upon your reputation if you again force me to drive you away.

“Understand then thoroughly the conditions upon which you will be allowed to return; … I require full and entire submission to my will and a marked respect in words, actions, and expression of countenance; do not forget that unless you employ as much art to please me as you have shown in gaining my friends, you hold nothing, absolutely nothing, and you have only worked to your harm. It is not simply that I wish to be obeyed and respected, but you shall anticipate in everything that which you imagine will please me.

“In regard to your mother, who has twenty times in the past fortnight implored me to take you back, I will put off to a private conversation on your return what I have to say to make you thoroughly understand all the affection and solicitude which you owe to her. Here then are the conditions of your return:

“First—you shall neither make nor sell, nor cause to be made or sold, directly or indirectly, anything which is not for my account; and you shall succumb no more to the temptation of appropriating to yourself anything, even the smallest matter, above that which I give you. You shall receive no watch to be repaired under any pretext whatever, or for any friend, no matter whom, without notifying me; you shall never touch anything without my express permission—you shall not even sell an old watch key without accounting for it to me.

“Second—you shall rise at six o’clock in the summer and at seven in the winter and you shall work till suppertime without repugnance at whatever I give you to do; I do not propose that you shall employ the faculties which God has given you, except to become celebrated in your profession. Remember that it is shameful and dishonorable to be the last and that if you do not become the first in your profession, you are unworthy of any consideration; the love of so beautiful a calling should penetrate your heart, and be the unique occupation of your mind.

“Third—you shall take your suppers always at home, and shall not go out evenings; the suppers and evenings abroad are too dangerous for you, but I consent that you dine Sundays and holidays with your friends, on condition that I know always to whom you are going and that you are absolutely never later than nine o’clock. And furthermore I exhort you never to ask permission contrary to this article and I advise you not to take it to yourself.

“Fourth—you shall abandon totally your maudite musique, and above all the company of idle people. I will not suffer any of them. The one and the other have brought you to what you are. Nevertheless, in consideration of your weakness, I permit the violin and the flute, but on the express condition that you never use them except after supper on working days, and never during the day; and you also never shall disturb the repose of the neighbors, or my own.

“Fifth—I shall avoid as far as possible sending you on errands, but in cases where I shall be obliged to do so, remember that above everything else I shall accept no poor excuses for your being late. You know in advance how much this article is revolting to me.

“Sixth—I will give you your board and eighteen livres a month which will serve for your expenses and little by little enable you to pay your debts. It would be too dangerous for your character and very improper in me to count with you the price of your work and require you to pay me board. If you devote yourself as you should, with the greatest zeal to the improvement of my business, and if by your talents you procure me more, I will give you a fourth part of the profits of all that comes to me through you. You know my way of thinking; you have experienced that I never allow myself to be surpassed in generosity; merit therefore that I do more for you than I promise; but remember that I give nothing for words, that I accept only actions.

“If my conditions suit you—if you feel strong enough to execute them in good faith, accept them and sign your acceptance at the bottom of this letter which you shall return to me; in that case assure M. Paignon of my sincere esteem and of my gratitude; say to him that I shall have the honor of seeing him and of asking him to dinner to-morrow, so dispose yourself to return with me to take the place which I was very far from believing you would occupy so soon, and perhaps never.”

Beneath is written:

“Monsieur, very honored, dear father;—I sign all your conditions in the firm desire to execute them with the help of the Lord; but how sadly all this recalls to me a time when such laws and such ceremonies were unnecessary to engage me to do my duty! It is right that I suffer the humiliation that I have justly merited, and if all this, joined to my good conduct, may procure for me and merit entirely the return of your good graces and of your friendship, I shall be only too happy. In faith of which, I sign all that is contained in this letter.

A. Caron, fils”

During the three years which followed the young man’s return to his father’s house he made such rapid progress in the art of watchmaking that we find him in 1753 making his first appearance in public in the defense of an escapement for watches of which he claimed to be the inventor.

In the December number of Le Mercure of that year, the following letter was published, which needs no commentary to show how thoroughly his father’s conditions had been understood by the youthful genius and with what serious purpose he had set to work.

“I have read, Monsieur,” he says, “with the greatest astonishment, in your September number, that M. Lepaute, watchmaker to the Luxembourg, there announces as his invention, a new escapement for watches and clocks which he says he has the honor of presenting to the King and to the Academy.

“It is of too much importance to me in the interests of truth and of my reputation to permit him to claim this invention by remaining silent on the subject of a breach of faith.

“It is true that on the 23rd of July last, in the joy of my discovery I had the weakness to confide this escapement to M. Lepaute, allowing him to make use of it in a clock which M. de Julienne had ordered of him, and whose interior he assured me would be examined by no one, because of the arrangement for winding of his own invention, and he alone had the key to the clock.

“But how could I imagine that M. Lepaute would ever undertake to appropriate to himself this escapement which it will be seen I confided to him under the seal of secrecy?

“I have no desire to take the public by surprise, and I have no intention to attempt to range it on my side by this simple statement of my case; but I earnestly beg that no more credence be extended to M. Lepaute than to me, until the Academy shall have decided who is the author of the new escapement. M. Lepaute evidently wishes to avoid all explanation, for he declares that his escapement resembles mine in no way; but from the announcement which he makes, I judge that it is entirely conformable to it in principle.

“Should the commissioners which the Academy names discover a difference it will be found to proceed merely from some fault in his construction, which will help to expose the plagiarism.

“I will not here give any of my proofs; our commissioners must receive them in their first form; therefore whatever M. Lepaute may say or write against me, I shall maintain a profound silence, until the Academy is informed and has decided.

“The judicious public will be so good as to wait until then; I hope this favor from their equity, and from the protection which they have always given the arts. I dare flatter myself, Monsieur, that you will be kind enough to insert this letter in your next issue.

“Caron, son, watchmaker, rue St. Denis, near Sainte-Catherine,

Paris, November 15th, 1753.”

Two days before the writing of this letter the ardent young inventor had addressed a lengthy petition to the Royal Academy of Sciences, in which the following passage occurs, permitting us to judge how completely watchmaking had become, as the father had hoped, the sole occupation of his son’s mind. He says: “Instructed by my father since the age of thirteen in the art of watchmaking, and animated by his example and counsels to occupy myself seriously with the perfecting of the art, it will not be thought surprising that from my nineteenth year, I have endeavored to distinguish myself therein, and to merit the public esteem. Escapements were the first object of my reflections. To diminish their defects, simplify and perfect them, became the spur which excited my ambition. … But what sorrow for me if M. Lepaute succeeds in taking from me the honor of a discovery which the Academy would have crowned! I do not speak of the calumnies which M. Lepaute has written and circulated against my father and me, they show a desperate cause and cover their author with confusion. It is sufficient for the present that your judgment, Gentlemen, assures to me the honor which my adversary wishes to take from me, but which I hope to receive from your equity and from your insight.

Caron, fils At Paris, November 13th, 1753”

The following February, two commissioners were appointed to investigate the matter. In the registry of the Royal Academy of Sciences, under the date of February 23rd, 1754, a lengthy report is given, a short extract from which will suffice to show the results of the investigation.

“We therefore believe that the Academy should regard M. Caron as the true inventor of the new escapement and that M. Lepaute has only imitated the invention; that the escapement of the clock presented to the Royal Academy on the 4th of August by Lepaute, is a natural consequence of the escapement for watches of M. Caron; that in its application to clocks, this escapement is inferior to that of Grabain, but that it is in watches the most perfect that has been produced, although it is the most difficult to execute.”

Signed, “Camus and de Montigny.”

“The Academy has confirmed this judgment in its assemblies of the 20th and the 23rd of February. In consequence of which I have delivered to M. Caron the present certificate with a copy of the report, conformable with the deliberations of March 2nd at Paris.”

This, March 4, 1754—

Signed, “Grand-Jean de Fouchy, Perpetual Secretary of the Royal Academy of Sciences.”

This lawsuit from which the young watchmaker issued triumphant, proved for him a valuable piece of advertising, for it gained him the attention of the king himself who happened to have a passion for novel devices in time-pieces. It was not long before the young Caron received an order from His Majesty to make for him a watch having the new escapement.

In a letter to a cousin in London dated July 31st, 1754, less than five months after receiving the certificate, he writes:

“I have at last delivered the watch to the King by whom I had the happiness to be recognized at once, and who remembered my name. His Majesty ordered me to show the watch to all the noblemen at the levée and never was artist received with so much kindness. His Majesty wished to enter into the minutest details of my invention. The watch in a ring for Madame de Pompadour is only four lines in diameter; it was very much admired although it is not entirely finished. The King asked me to make a repeater for him in the same style. All the noblemen present followed the example of the king and each wishes to be served first. I have also made a curious little clock for Madame Victoire in the style of my watches; the King wished to make her a present of it. It has two dials, and to whatever side one turns, the hours always can be seen.

“Remember, my dear cousin, that this is the young man whom you have taken under your protection and that it is through your kindness that he hopes to become a member of the London Society.”

Even as late as June 16th, 1755, the ambition of the young watchmaker had not extended itself as is clearly shown in a letter addressed to Le Mercure by the young horloger du roi as he now styles himself. In this letter he modestly defends himself against the envy which his success has awakened. He writes:

“Monsieur, I am a young artist who has only the honor of being known to the public by a new escapement for watches which the Academy has crowned with its approbation and of which the journals have spoken a year ago. This success fixes me to the state of watchmaker, and I limit my whole ambition to acquiring the science of my art. I never have thrown an envious eye upon the productions of others of my profession, but it is with great impatience that I see others attempting to take from me the foundation which by study and work I have acquired. It is this heat of the blood, which I very much fear age will never correct, that made me defend with so much ardor the just pretentions which I had to the invention of my escapement when it was contested eighteen months ago. Will you allow me to reply to certain objections to my escapement which in numerous writings have been made public? It is said that the use of this escapement renders it impossible to make flat watches, or even small ones, which if it were true would make the best escapement known very unsatisfactory.”

After giving numerous technical details the young watchmaker terminates thus: “By this means I make watches as thin as may be desired, thinner even than have before been made, without in the least diminishing their good quality. The first of these simplified watches is in the hands of the king. His Majesty has carried it for a year and is well satisfied. If these facts reply to the first objection, others reply equally to the second. I had the honor to present to Madame de Pompadour a short time ago a watch in a ring, which is only four lines and a half in diameter and a line less a third in thickness between the plates. To render this ring more convenient I contrived in place of a key a circle which surrounds the dial plate bearing a tiny projecting hook. By drawing this hook with the finger nail about two-thirds of the circuit of the dial the watch is wound up and goes thirty hours. Before taking it to her I watched this ring follow exactly for five days the second hand of my chronometer; thus in making use of my escapement and my construction, excellent watches can be made as thin and as small as may be desired.

“I have the honor to be, etc.,

Caron, fils, horloger du roi.”

Although the vision of the young man was still hemmed in by the walls of his father’s shop, yet his ardent spirit was eager for flight and was waiting only for opportunity to test its powers. He was now twenty-three years of age; the unparalleled success which had attended his efforts had taught even the stern father the need of a wider field for the genius which had so easily outstripped him in his own calling. Satisfied now with the solid foundation in character which his own hand had helped to lay he had no desire to stand in the way of his son’s advancement. As not infrequently happens, it was a woman’s hand that opened the door and liberated the captive. Speaking of this period, his friend Gudin says: “Attracted by the celebrity of his academic triumph, a beautiful woman brought a watch to his father’s shop, either to have it repaired, or perhaps with the design of meeting the young artist of whom so much was said. The young man solicited the honor of returning the watch as soon as he had repaired the disorder, and this event, which seemed so commonplace, changed the purpose of his life and gave it a new meaning.

“The husband of this woman was an old man possessed of a very small office at court, whose age and infirmities almost incapacitated him for the performance of his duties, he therefore sought to pass them on to the young Caron.”

Here indeed was an opening which, if embraced, would lead him into a world wholly outside that by which heretofore he had been surrounded. It meant for him opportunity. Instantly all the latent desires within him surged into consciousness. Springing with joy from the low bench of his father’s dimly lighted shop, the youthful genius cast forever aside his workman’s frock and with one bound entered the service of the king, becoming an inmate of the vast and splendid palace of Versailles.

November 9, 1755, a warrant was issued in the name of Louis XV, King of France from which the following is an extract:

“Great Stewards of France, high stewards and ordinary stewards of our household, masters and controllers of our pantry and account room, greetings! Upon good and praiseworthy report which has been made to us of the person of M. Pierre-August Caron, and his zeal in our service, we have this day appointed him and by these presents, signed with our hand do appoint him to the office of one of our clerc-contrôleurs of the pantry of our household, vacant by the dismission of Pierre-August Franquet, last possessor thereof, that he may have and exercise, enjoy and use, the honors, authorities, prerogatives, privileges, liberties, salary, rights, etc.

“Given at Versailles under the seal of our secret,

Louis.”

Louis XV

The exchange being thus officially made, Pierre-August Franquet, the aged man in question, ceded his office, and in return was to receive a yearly pension which was guaranteed by the elder watchmaker. Although this office was too insignificant to admit its possessor to the dignity of bearing a title of nobility, yet certain it is that in his own estimation at least, the brilliant young contrôleur of the pantry was already a member of the aristocracy and with the same ardor which he had shown at watchmaking, he set about acquiring at once, and to perfection, all the external marks of one born to that station.

His duties as contrôleur clerc d’office were not arduous; he was one of sixteen similar contrôleurs who served the king’s table, four at a time, alternating quarterly. His duty was to walk in grand livery, his sword by his side, in the long procession which preceded the king’s meat; when arrived at the table, he took the platter and placed it before the king. Ample time was thus left him to develop those graces of mind and of person which nature had so lavishly bestowed upon him. For the first time he began to feel the lack of that classical education which had been denied him in his youth. The practical training which he had acquired under his father’s roof enabled him, however, readily to turn the force of his intellect in this new direction, so that in an incredibly short time he acquired such a knowledge of literature, grammar, geography, history, and geometry as served for the basis of the important literary work he was afterward to accomplish.

Amongst the vast collection of manuscripts from the pen of Beaumarchais left after his death, M. de Loménie discovered very many belonging to this period which show that the young contrôleur of the pantry already was exercising himself in the art of writing and that from the first he formed the habit of noting as he read such passages as struck him forcibly, to which he freely added impressions of his own.

But the many-sided nature of the young man did not permit him to indulge exclusively his taste for study. The gay world into which he had entered enlisted much of his time and talents although it never absorbed them. It gave him the opportunity of cultivating his rare social gifts which he soon learned to display to advantage. As soon as Beaumarchais appeared at Versailles, to quote Gudin, “The ladies were struck with his high stature, the elegance of his form, the regularity of his features, his vivid and animated countenance, the assurance of his look, with that dominating air which seemed to elevate him above all his surroundings, and, in a word, with that involuntary ardor which illuminated him at their approach.” But he adds, “Before going farther let us observe that it was in the workshop of his father that his soul was made strong and inaccessible to vice or adversity. If he had been born in luxury or grandeur it would have been softened like wax in the rays of the sun.”

Less than two months after relinquishing his duties at court, Pierre-August Franquet died suddenly of apoplexy leaving his widow a considerable fortune. Before the year was out she consoled herself by marrying the brilliant young contrôleur, although she was six years his senior. Thus it would seem that the young man was at last settled in his career, having a beautiful wife who idolized him, and a sufficient fortune at his disposal. Their married happiness, however, was of short duration. In less than a year she was attacked by typhoid fever and died after a short sickness, although attended by four of the best physicians of the capital.

Gudin, in speaking of her sudden death, says that Beaumarchais was at that time so inexperienced in the ways of the world and so grieved at the loss of his wife that he allowed the term permitted by law to expire before he thought of taking steps to secure to himself the succession to his wife’s property, so that after her death he was reduced to the small income from his office at court; and it would seem that he never gained from this connection any material advantage except his footing at court and the name of Beaumarchais which he took from a small landed property belonging to his wife and which was in itself a fortune. At twenty-five we find him again free and awaiting eagerly the opportunity to push his fortunes further. He had not long to wait.

We have seen already that Beaumarchais was very fond of music and that according to his father it was this same maudite musique that had in his early youth brought him so near the brink of ruin. Little did his father dream that this was to become later the means of his son’s most rapid advancement.

Gudin says: “He loved music and played upon several instruments, amongst others the harp and the flute. The harp was at that time disdained, but when Beaumarchais applied to it his mechanical knowledge, he perfected it and brought it into vogue.

“Having won a wide celebrity by performances in numerous salons at Paris and Versailles, the fame of his skill reached the ears of the Princesses of France, who were four in number and who all had a taste for music.

“They desired to hear the young musician, who was only too flattered to be permitted to play before them.”

The dignity and charm of his person, his manners which though polished and respectful retained a certain frankness such as rarely penetrated to those august presences, joined to his brilliant talents, completely won for him the favor of Mesdames who insisted upon being permitted to have Beaumarchais for their instructor. From this moment, dates what in a certain sense might almost be called an intimacy between the young man who was so recently seated on his workman’s bench behind the window looking out on the rue St. Denis and the four Princesses who were separated by so profound a gulf from even the highest of the nobility in the court about them. It must be understood that these women took no part whatever in the gay licentious existence which disgraced the court of their father, Louis XV. Trained by their mother, the admirable Queen Marie Leczinska, to a life of sincere piety, they passed their time with her in the performance of the really arduous duties of their rank. As queen and daughters of France they belonged to the nation and not to themselves. So long as they performed these duties, the nation cheerfully allowed them the prerogatives of their rank, and the means of gratifying their luxurious tastes.

Marie Leczinska, Wife of Louis XV

It was therefore into this august family circle that Beaumarchais entered, to be for several years the central figure of all its pastimes and amusements. Gudin tells us that at this time Mesdames were in the habit of giving a weekly concert at which the King, Queen and Dauphin were present and to which a very select company was invited.

These concerts were arranged and superintended by Beaumarchais who seems to have been treated by all with marked favor and esteem. The Dauphin took great pleasure in his company, and on one occasion said of him, “He is the only man who speaks frankly with me.” The Dauphin, as is well known, was of an austere nature, and for that reason, doubtless, valued the honest character of Beaumarchais at its true worth.

In dealing with his royal pupils, Beaumarchais exercised great tact and knew how to make them satisfied with themselves and with him. La Harpe says of him: “I have seen few men more favored by nature. His countenance and the tone of his voice were equally ardent, the former illuminated by eyes full of fire; there was as much expression in the accent and the look, as delicacy in the smile, and above all, a kind of assurance which was inspired by a consciousness of power.”

These personal gifts, this assurance and skill, even more than the favor of Mesdames, quickly attracted to him the enmity of those whose high birth alone assured them a reception at court. No better idea of the snares set for him, nor of his skill in avoiding them can be given than by quoting a few pages from Gudin.

“One morning as he presented himself to be admitted to Mesdames, one of their women ran to meet him.

“ ‘Oh my dear friend you are lost, some one has persuaded Mesdames that you are on very bad terms with your father, that he has driven you from his house and that, indignant at the tricks you have played him, he will not see you any more.’

“ ‘Oh, is that all? Then I do not count myself dead. Don’t disturb yourself.’ He said this and hurried back to Paris.

“ ‘You have always wished to see Versailles; I have an excellent opportunity to-day to show you the palace in detail.’ Father and son then returned with all possible speed. Beaumarchais took pains that they should be seen by the Princesses at the celebration of the mass, at their dinner, at their promenade, everywhere they were to be found.

“In the evening, still accompanied by his father, whom he left in an ante-chamber, he entered the apartments of the Princesses; he found them cold, dreamy, embarrassed, and not wanting to look at him, trying to show more annoyance than they really felt.

“The most vivacious of them said to him with impatience, ‘With whom have you been all day?’

“ ‘Madame, with my father.’

“ ‘His father, Adelaide, that isn’t possible, we were told that they had quarreled.’

“ ‘I, Madame. I pass my life with him. He is in the ante-room—I have come for your orders; he is waiting for me, if you will deign to see him he will testify to the attachment which I have never ceased to have for him.’ ”

The Princesses, as Beaumarchais had well guessed, were anxious to see the father of their instructor and he was bidden to enter. As the elder Caron possessed, amongst his other qualities, scarcely less sense of a situation and power of adaptability than his son, he was at once at his ease. His personal dignity and sincerity of manner could not fail to produce a pleasing impression upon the young women who, as we have seen, demanded merit as the ground of their favor, so that in its results this intrigue which was intended to ruin the young man, really served to heighten the esteem in which he was held.

At another time on leaving their apartments, Beaumarchais was intercepted by a crowd of youthful noblemen one of whom had wagered to cover him with confusion. Approaching him, the nobleman said—to quote from Gudin, “ ‘Monsieur, you who are so clever with watches, will you tell me if this is a good one?’

“ ‘Monsieur,’ replied Beaumarchais, looking at the company, ‘since I have ceased to work at that trade I have become very awkward.’

“ ‘Ah, Monsieur, do not refuse me.’

“ ‘Very well, but I warn you that I have lost my art.’ Then taking the watch he opened it, raised it in the air feigning to examine it, and suddenly let it fall from that elevation; then, making a profound reverence, he said, ‘I warned you, Monsieur, of my extreme awkwardness,’ and walked away leaving his provoker to gather up the debris of his watch while the assembly burst into laughter.”

But the insults did not stop here.

They became so frequent and their tone grew so malignant that Beaumarchais felt the time had come to put a stop to them. Seriously outraged by a courtier whom Gudin calls the Chevalier du C—— he accepted the provocation.

They mounted their horses and rode off to a secluded spot in the woods behind Meudon. In the words of Gudin, “Beaumarchais had the sad advantage of plunging his sword into the bosom of his adversary; but when on withdrawing it he saw the blood issue in a copious stream he was seized with terror and thought of nothing but helping him. He took his handkerchief and attached it as well as he could over the wound, to arrest the flow of blood and to stop fainting.

“ ‘Save yourself,’ said the fallen man, ‘you are lost if any one sees you, if any one learns that it is you who have taken my life.’

“ ‘You must have help, I will get it for you’—Beaumarchais mounted and rode to Meudon, found a surgeon, and indicating the spot to him, where the wounded man lay, he went off at full gallop to Paris to see what was to be done. His first care was to inform himself if the Chevalier du C—— still lived. He found that he had been brought to Paris but that his life was despaired of—he learned that the sick man refused to name the one who had wounded him so seriously.

“ ‘I have only what I merit,’ he said. ‘I have provoked an honest man who never gave me any offense, to please people whom I do not esteem.’

“His relatives and friends were not able to draw any other reply from him during the eight days which he lived. He carried the secret to the tomb, leaving to Beaumarchais the regret of having taken the life of a man who proved so generous an enemy.

“ ‘Ah, young man,’ Beaumarchais said to me one day when I was joking over some duel which was then much talked about, ‘you do not know what despair a man feels when he sees the hilt of his sword upon his enemy’s breast!’ It was then that he related to me this adventure which was still afflicting him, although many years had elapsed since it had taken place. He never spoke of it without grief, and I should probably never have heard of it, if he had not thought it right to make me feel how dangerous it might be to joke about such fatal affairs, the number of which is increased much more by frivolity than by bravery.”

It may be well to add, in relation to the death of the Chevalier du C—— that the protection of Mesdames, who personally interceded with the King, prevented an investigation being made so that Beaumarchais was secure.

But while he was still holding his own in the envious crowd of courtiers at Versailles, his position was in reality far from desirable. Monsieur de Loménie says: “Having no other resource than the small income from his charge of contrôleur, not only was he obliged to put his time gratuitously at the disposal of the Princesses, without speaking of the cost of keeping up appearances, but he even at times found himself under the necessity of proceeding like a great lord, and of making advances for the purchase of costly instruments which they scarcely thought of promptly paying back. Very desirous of enriching himself, he was too clever to compromise his credit by receiving pecuniary recompense, which would have put him in the rank of a mercenary; he preferred to wait for some favorable occasion, when he might obtain a real advantage from his position, reserving the right to say later: ‘I have passed four years in meriting the good graces of Mesdames by the most assiduous and most disinterested pains bestowed upon divers objects of their amusements.’

“But Mesdames, like all other women and especially princesses, had sufficiently varied fancies which it was necessary to satisfy immediately. In the correspondence of Mme. du Deffant is the very amusing story of a box of candied quinces of Orleans, so impatiently demanded by Madame Victoire that the King, her father, sent in haste to the minister, M. de Choiseul, who sent to the Bishop of Orleans, who was awakened at three o’clock in the morning to give him, to his great affright, a missive from the King, running as follows:

“ ‘Monsieur the bishop of Orleans, my daughters wish some cotignac; they wish the very small boxes; send some. If you have none, I beg you … [in this place in the letter there was a drawing of a Sedan chair, and below] to send immediately into your episcopal city and get some, and be sure that they are the very small boxes; upon which, Monsieur the bishop of Orleans, may God have you in His holy keeping. Louis.’ Below in postscriptum is written: ‘The sedan chair, means nothing, it was designed by my girls upon the paper which I found at hand.’ A courier was immediately dispatched for Orleans. ‘The cotignac,’ says Madame du Deffant, ‘arrived the next day, but no one thought anything more of it.’

“It often happened that Beaumarchais received missives that recalled somewhat the history of the cotignac, with this difference, that the young and poor master of music, had not, like the bishop of Orleans, a courier at his disposal. Here, for example, is a letter addressed to him by the first lady in waiting of Madame Victoire:

“ ‘Madame Victoire has a taste, Monsieur, to play to-day on the tambourine, and charges me to write instantly that you may get her one as quickly as will be possible. I hope, Monsieur, that your cold has disappeared and that you will be able to attend promptly to the commission of Madame. I have the honor of being very perfectly, Monsieur, your very humble servant,

De Boucheman Coustillier.’

“It became necessary instantly to procure a tambourine worthy to be offered to a princess; the next day it was a harp; the day after a flute; and so on and so on.”

When the young Beaumarchais had completely exhausted his purse, very thin at that time, he very humbly sent his note to Mme. Hoppen, the stewardess of Mesdames, accompanying it with reflections of which the following is a sample:

“I beg you, Madame, to be so good as to pay attention to the fact that I have engaged myself for the payment of 844 livres, not being able to advance them, because I have given all the money that I had, and I beg you not to forget that I am in consequence, absolutely without a sol.

Besides the	1852	livres
Madame Victoire owes me	15	”
Then for the book bound in morocco with her arms and gilded	36	”
And for copying the music into said book	36	”
	———
Total	1939	livres

Which makes a sum of 80 louis, 19 livres.

“I do not count the cab fares which it cost me to go among the different workmen, who nearly all live in the suburbs, nor for the messages which all this occasioned, because I have never had the habit of making a note of these things or of counting them with Mesdames. Don’t forget, I beg you that Madame Sophie owes me five louis; in a time of misery one collects the smallest things.

“You know the respect and attachment which I have for you. I will not add another word.”

Four years spent in petty services of this kind was a severe test to the earnestness of purpose of a man fired with lofty ambitions and full of restless energy. Although at times suffering from secret irritation he remained master of himself and steadily refused to compromise his hope of great fortune by yielding to the dictates of present necessities. At last his patience was rewarded in a way worthy of the sacrifices he had made.

There was at this time a celebrated financier, named Paris du Verney, who for years had been organizing a great work, the École Militaire, actually in existence to-day on the Champs de Mars in Paris, but which seemed likely to languish at its beginning owing to the lack of Royal recognition.

Madame de Pompadour

As Paris du Verney had been the financial manager for Madame de Pompadour, and as he had been protected by her, a settled aversion was directed against him by all the members of the Royal family. The disasters of the Seven Years War had notably diminished the influence of the Marquise so that the École Militaire, considered as her work was regarded with an evil eye by the people of France. Nothing less than the official recognition of the school by the King’s visiting it in person, could lift it out of the disfavor into which it had fallen. But how could that indolent monarch be induced to honor the old financier with a visit? This was the problem that for nine years occupied the mind and heart of Paris du Verney. All his efforts in this regard had however been in vain. The King was indifferent, the Princesses prejudiced; there seemed left no avenue through which approach could be made.

Matters were at this pass when the attention of du Verney was attracted by the young music master of Mesdames, now growing restless under the tedium of his showy but irksome charge. The shrewd mind of du Verney was quick to discover the latent business capacity which lay hidden under the exterior of a gay courtier. He determined to make a final effort for the accomplishment of his project by employing the mediation of the favorite of the Princesses, to whom he promised, if success should crown his efforts, an open pathway to the rapid acquisition of a brilliant and independent fortune.