almost into a fever-have persuaded the Empress that the tale is false, and that the narrator is an impostor. This royal scepticism costs him a month's imprisonment; then all is cleared up, and a handsome present is offered as a compensation, which he courageously refuses, and returns at once to Paris.

Soon after this, popular indignation having brought the infamous Maupeou Parliament to an end, he procured the reversal of his sentence in the Goëzman affair. Some time afterwards he was equally successful in his second suit against the Count de la Blache. Thus did his unconquerable energy procure him the victory in both these great litigations, which had at first gone so hopelessly against him.

was

But amidst all these turmoils, troubles, and adventures, he still found time for literature. In 1772, he had composed the first draft of the Barbier.' It was then a comic opera, destined for the Italian theatre, and was written simply as a vehicle to introduce some Spanish airs he had brought from Madrid. Being refused, however, by the Théâtre Italien, he turned it into a comedy, which at once accepted by the Française. Three different times its production was fixed and postponed. The first was on account of the Duc de Chaulnes affair; the second on account of the Goëzman affair; the third time the censor stepped in and forbade its representation on account of its containing certain passages supposed to refer to the great lawsuits. At length, upon his return from Vienna, in 1775, he obtained a definite permission for its representation. Instead of cutting out the passages which had alarmed the censor, he added many other far more pungent and unmistakable references to the forbidden subject, and added a fifth act to the original four.

The fame of his lawsuits, adventures, and, above all, the brilliant wit of the Mémoires,' together with the frequent postponement of the work, had roused public curiosity to fever heat. But, as is frequently the case after exaggerated expectations, the comedy was on the first night a dead failure.

"You should have seen," he writes wittily, in his Preface to the play, in which he calls it "a comedy that was represented and failed," "You should have seen the

'Barbier's' feeble supporters disperse, hide their faces, and take to flight. The women-always so brave when they have anything to protect-smothered in their hoods up to their plumes, and lowering their eyes in confusion; the men hastening to pay visits to another, and to make honorable amends for what they had said in favor of my piece. . . . Some of them looked through their eye-glasses to the left as I passed by on the right, and pretended no longer to see me. Oh, Heavens! Others, with more courage, but making sure no one was looking at them, drew me into a corner, and said to me: 'How have you produced this illusion on our parts; for you must allow, my friend, that your piece is the greatest platitude in the world.'

Failure gave only new energy to this unconquerable man. Within twenty-four hours he revised, cut, and partly re-wrote the piece; on the second night its success was as triumphant as its failure had been dire upon the first; and it created a sensation which was only to be exceeded by its successor, 'Le Mariage de Figaro.'

There is a peculiar literary interest attached to the Barbier,' since out of a momentary disagreement with the sociétaires of the Théâtre Français arose the first Dramatic Authors' Society. In those days, and during the whole previous history of the drama in France, the actors had always taken the lion's share of the profits, leaving scarcely crumbs to the unfortunate authors. Hardy, one of the earliest and the most prolific of French playwrights, the Lope de Vega of France, is said never to have received more than three crowns for a play. The great Corneille was scarcely, if at all, better paid for his immortal productions; and had he not stooped to write fulsome dedications to the rich and powerful, would have died of hunger, as he nearly did once or twice. In 1653, Quinault slightly improved this state of things by establishing a new system of payment, namely, a ninth of the receipts for a five-act play, and a twelfth for a three-act; but this percentage was deducted only after the daily expenses of the theatre had been taken up, and these expenses were reckoned at 500 livres in the winter and 300 in the summer. To these sums was added the quarter, then, as now, deducted for the poor from all theatrical receipts, together with all subscrip

tions, life-tickets, and boxes secured before the night; and as if this did not sufficiently attenuate the poor author's share, the accounts of the theatre were confessedly falsified, or, as they put it, "badly made out." But even this does not complete the story of his wrongs. When the receipts of a performance fell below a certain sum, the play was said to "fall within the rules," that is to say, from that time it became the property of the theatre, and the writer had no further claim upon it. At first, the stipulated sums were those already mentioned, namely, 500 and 300 livres, but in 1750 they were raised respectively to 1200 and 800.

When, after thirty-two representations of his play to overflowing houses, Beaumarchais applied to the sociétaires for his share of the profits, they sent him 4506 livres. He requested to examine the accounts; they refused at first, then sent them "badly made out." These he would not accept, and they would render no others. It was not with him a question of money, for he had made the theatre a present of his former plays, and afterwards gave his whole share of the receipts of the Mariage de Figaro,' amounting to 41,499 livres, to charity; it was a question of principle, and amidst the enormous mass of business which litigation and vast speculations entailed upon him, he set himself to radically reform the existing condition of dramatic authorship.

His preliminary step was to send out in vitations to all the recognised playwrights to attend a dinner at his house, in order that they might discuss the best means to redress their mutual wrongs. The difficulty of the task he had undertaken was made manifest to him even here, upon the very threshold-it lay less in the opposition of the actors than in the authors themselves. Some were too old, or too well off, or too indolent, to bestir themselves to join in the movement; others were won over to the enemy by the blandishments of the actresses; one refused to come if another, of whom he was jealous or with whom he had a personal quarrel, was invited; some of the smaller fry, in whom vanity was stronger than interest, feared to rebel against the actors, lest their productions should henceforth be tabooed. A certain number, however, of the more sensible heartily supported Beaumarchais in his excellent undertaking.

During three years the battle raged warmly upon both sides. The 'Français' was an enormously powerful opponent, backed as it was by some of the greatest of the noblesse, and no man less influential than Beaumarchais could have sustained the fight against it. As it was, he was virtually defeated, for at the end of the time specified the King issued a new decree, which, although it altered the terms of payment, left the author, in reality, in no better position than before. At an early stage of the Revolution the privileges of the Français' were suppressed; and in 1791, influenced by several Mémoires published by Beamarchais, the National Assembly decreed that the plays of no living author should be represented, either in Paris or the provinces, without his permission.

To pass from the disagreements of authors and actors to the revolt of the American colonies seems a violent transition, but the whole life of this man was marked by such extraordinary incongruities. There is little or no doubt but that Beaumarchais' unceasing and urgent representations to the ministers of Louis the Sixteenth largely influenced that monarch's fatal policy of intervention in American affairs. It is certain that, after much urging, he prevailed upon Maurepas to permit him to secretly freight ships for the colonies, at his own risk, with arms, ammunition, and clothing for 25,000 men. The vastness of the undertaking may be conceived from the fact that the first cargo was worth 3,000,000 francs, and that if one out of three ships arrived safely the profits would still be large. Several of the vessels were seized by the English cruisers, but many others reached their destination and delivered their cargo. When the war was concluded, the States were indebted to him for a large sum. There is not space to enter into the complicated discussion that ensued; there was a dispute over a million francs, but that this formed a just portion of his demands is beyond a doubt. Another lawsuitthis one to last long beyond his life! In 1793, Alexander Hamilton decided that the United States was Beaumarchais' debtor to the amount of 2,280,000 francs. But still the grateful Republic declined to pay the man who had so largely assisted in its establishment. From his garret in Hamburg, during the Terror, he addressed an appeal to the whole nation. "Americans!" it began, "I have served you with

unwearied zeal. I have received during my life nothing but bitterness for my recompense, and I die your creditor. Suffer me, then, in dying, to bequeath you my daughter, to endow her with a portion of what you owe me," &c. But even this appeal produced no effect upon that shrewd and tender-hearted people. Nearly fifty years afterwards they paid one of his descendants 800,000 francs, although the debt allowed by Hamilton, with interest, then amounted to 4,000,000. The ingratitude of princes has justly passed into a proverb, but a careful examination of history would not give a large balance of that rare virtue to republicans.

Surely now he has enough to absorb his exuberant energy, to stretch his business capacity to the utmost. Not so. In the midst of these vast undertakings he rushes into another, which alone would suffice to monopolise every moment and every thought of any ordinary mortal. This is no less than two complete editions of Voltaire's works, in 162 volumes, to be edited by Condorcet. He buys all that author's unpublished MSS. of Panckouke' for 160,000 francs; sends to England for Baskerville's type, then the best in the world; despatches agents to Holland to study the art of paper-making; buys three paper-mills in the Vosges; and then looks about for a place where the work may be printed this last the most difficult task of all. French territory is out of the question, as a large portion of the great sceptic's writings is there under ban. At length he fixes upon Kehl, in the domains of the Margrave of Baden. That potentate makes difficulties at first, and this arrangement nearly falls through, but is at length brought to a satisfactory conclusion. Three years are occupied in organising the enterprise, and the work will require eleven years to be executed!

It proved a vast failure. Fifteen thousand copies were printed, and the subscribers never numbered two thousand.

We must pass over the Kornman episode* (another lawsuit !), and come at once

*The wife of a man named Kornman having been greatly ill-treated and afterwards imprisoned by her husband, appealed for protection. Beaumarchais took up her cause; for which Kornman commenced a procès against him. The affair is chiefly remarkable for a series of Mémoires' from the pen of a young advocate named Bergasse, who proved himself

to that most important and brilliant event, which is in itself an extraordinary history

the production of his famous comedy, 'Le Mariage de Figaro,' which he had found time to write amidst all these gigantic and multifarious speculations. Long before it was ready for representation, the author, as in the case of the 'Barbier,' had artfully contrived to raise expectation on tiptoe. The King requested to peruse it. It was read to him and the Queen by Madame Campan. "It is detestable!" he exclaimed when she came to Figaro's tirade against State prisons. "This shall never be played: we should have to pull down the Bastille to prevent this piece being dangerous. This man trifles with all that must be respected in a government." "Then it will not be played ?" inquired the Queen. "Certainly not; you may be assured of that," was the reply.*

But Beaumarchais' influence among the most powerful of the nobility at this time was more than sufficient to overcome the opposition of the weak and vacillating Louis. Our author was immensely rich, and more than one great aristocrat-the Prince of Nassau, for instance-was his debtor for large sums. The comedy was submitted to the judgment of no fewer than five censors, all of whom he found means to convert into advocates. At length the Comte de Vaudreuil begged and obtained permission for its representation at his country house on the occasion of a fête given in honor of the Comte d'Artois. But before the author would accede to this, he adroitly assured himself that the royal veto should be withdrawn from its production at the Français.'

As with the Barbier,' expectation was disappointed; the Mariage' was not a success, and had to undergo considerable alterations. Doubtless it was this partial failure which ultimately determined the King to authorise its public representation. He told Montesquieu that he believed it would fail. Never did judgment

prove more erroneuos. At eight o'clock in the morning, on the day of its first performance, the doors of the theatre were besieged by an eager crowd. "It is impossible," writes Grimm, "to be by turns more humble, more bold, more urgent to obtain a favor at Court than were our young men of rank to secure a place on the first representation of Figaro.'" Three persons were suffocated in the press. Ladies of the highest rank dined in the actress's rooms to be sure of a place, and were content with a seat even in the balconies, among women not comme il faut.

Beaumarchais sat in a private box screened by a lattice work, between two abbés, in order, he said, that they might administer "des secours très spirituels" to him in case of death. The triumph was prodigious. The comedy ran eight months, at the end of which the receipts amounted to 346,197 livres. As before stated, he gave the whole of his share, 41,499 livres, to charities.

"There is something more foolish than my piece," he said, "and that is its success." "The ancien régime," writes St. Beuve, "would not have so merited to perish if it had not assisted that evening, and a hundred times afterwards, with transport, at that gay, mad, insolent, indecent mockery of itself, and if it had not taken so magnificent a part in its own destruc

It is undoubtedly a scarcely exaggerated picture of the morals and manners of the society of the day. It is full of the most bitter satire against the author's enemies, and Figaro's speeches contain a running commentary upon the most famous incidents of the author's life. The effrontery with which he exposed the vices, the meanness, the ignorance of the very people with whom he associated, his ridicule of ministers, police, censors, prisons, every department of law and government, is unique in modern literature. And it is still more remarkable when we consider that in this gibbeting of society the author, unlike his predecessors in that school of satire, did not aim at its overthrow. Why should he, when his own interests were so completely identified with it? Yet Napoleon said that "Figaro' was the revolution already in action."

Little thought the brilliant noblesse, who nightly assembled to enjoy the witty sar

casms of the Spanish valet, that they were applauding their own trial and condemnation; that beneath that smiling, mocking mask were hidden the grim features of the headsman, and that behind him hovered the shadow of the guillotine. So might the gay Pompeians have revelled the night before Vesuvius overwhelmed them with its fiery torrent.

But the history of the comedy is not yet complete. The King was greatly irritated at its success. One evening, shortly

after its production, while he was playing cards, his brother introduced the subject; giving way to anger, he wrote in pencil upon the back of a seven of spades an order for Beaumarchais' arrest. It was immediately executed, and the prisoner was thrown into Saint Lazare, one of the vilest prisons of the city. The consternation of Paris may be imagined; consternation speedily changed to indignation at such an act of lawless tyranny. Of all the fatal blunders of Louis the Sixteenth's reign, few were more appalling than this. At the end of five days Beaumarchais was released, and to make amends for his unjust arrest the King not only went in person, attended by all his ministers, to witness the comedy, but actually had it played at the Trianon,' the Queen herself taking the part of Rosine! It is difficult to sympathise with the woes of a monarch who could thus act; for weakness is the worst and most dangerous of all kingly vices.

In

A strange, extravagant drama, entitled 'Tarare,' and a third comedy entitled 'La Mère Coupable,' in which the immortal. Figaro is a third time introduced, now reformed and virtuous, complete the list of his dramatic works. Of these the ' Mariage' is incomparably the most brilliant, and still holds the French stage. verve, abandon, and originality of conception, it is unrivalled. Every moment," writes Grimm, "the action seems approaching its end; every moment the author sets it going again, and by words almost insignificant, but which, without effort, prepare new scenes and replace all the actors in a situation as vivid, as piquant as those that went before."

66

At the outbreak of the Revolution he went over to the popular side, and we find him contracting with the Assembly to supply 60,000 muskets, which he was to bring from Holland. This proved a task of insurmountable difficulty. At one

time he was arrested, thrown into the Abbaye, and, but for a friend who enabled him to escape only two hours before they commenced, would have been one of the victims of the September massacres. Instead of concealing himself in some place of safety, as any other man would have done, he proceeded from the prison gates to seek out Danton upon the musket affair, in pursuance to which project he soon afterwards left France. During his absence the Convention proscribed him, placed him upon the list of emigrés, took possession of his magnificent house-one of the sights of Paris, and which had cost him, in 1780, 1,663,000 francs-and confiscated all his effects. Age had not diminished his old daring hardihood; utterly regardless of the danger that menaced him, he returned to Paris in 1793 to defend his rights, and wrote another series of Mémoires, of which he had 6000 copies printed and distributed throughout the city. "I have come," he wrote to the terrible Santerre," to offer my head to the sword of Justice, if I cannot prove I am a great citizen. Save me, Citizen Commandant, from pillage and the dagger, and I shall again be serviceable to my country."

During the Terror he took refuge in Holland, whence we have already described him as writing from his miserable garret urgent appeals to the justice of Ameri

ca.

He returned to Paris in 1796 to gather together the remnants of his once splendid fortune. His life was restless and feverish to the last. On the 18th of May, 1799, he was found dead in his bed. An analysis of Beaumarchais' character would not prove at all interesting to the general reader; but so much was he vili

fied and' abused by many of his contemporaries, that I cannot forbear quoting the testimony of La Harpe, who, as he himself informs us, was by no means a partial critic.

"M. Beaumarchais, the man, was, to me, always superior to the writer, and worthy of particular attention. I can speak freely upon all that concerns him without being suspected of partiality, since, although I have lived in his society sufficiently to know him well, I have never been bound to him by any ties of friendship. He has never done me good or evil, and I owe to his memory what I owe to the public-truth. . . . Surrounded by a family whom he loved, and friends who loved him as much as his family, far from the intercourse of women, which is the centre of all rivalries and dissensions, he tasted the joy and peace of domesticity almost always in the society of the same people; and in this circle, where he sought repose, this Beaumarchais, so turbulent in the world, was no more, in the true meaning of the term, than a good man. I have never seen any one who appeared to be on better terms with others and with himself." Commenting upon Voltaire's mot (referring to the charge of poisoning his wives), "This man is too droll to be a poisoner," he continues, "He is too good, too sensible, too open, too bountiful, to do a wicked action."

To literary men and all persons in distress his purse was always open. At his death there was found among his papers memoranda of 900,000 francs lent without security, at different times, to men of all classes, and seemingly never repaid.Temple Bar.

WHAT odds if in the settlement
I'm only "Injin Joe"?
It can't be helped! A sorter voice
Seems callin' me,* and so

* We've all of us got more of the Indian in our composition than we fancy. There is a wild strain in our breed that comes out when a youngster has been brought up near the woods, and has got a liking for the sniff of the spruces and hemlocks. I've known one or two

I steal into the woods at night. Folks never see me go.

such, when the hankering came over them, break loose and bolt for the woods for a spell. "Injin Joe" (as a backwood friend of mine was called, from his living so much in the woods) hunted with me on the Blue Ridge, a short distance from the spot where a month afterwards he got his scare.