Beaumarchais and the War of American Independence Volume I Part 8

Beaumarchais and the War of American Independence Volume I Part 8

?This disquietude is the only reason that has forced me to r.e.t.a.r.d the demand for your hand, after which I have sighed for so long a time.

?I do not know what claims you have upon the property of your dear uncle, either in regard to the dowry of your late aunt or for the debts of which I have heard indirectly spoken. It seems very improper for me to broach this subject to you or to him. I revolt at the thought. Nevertheless, my dear Pauline, in order to pa.s.s a happy life, one must be without uneasiness as to the future, and no sooner should I have you in my arms than I must begin to tremble lest some misfortune should cause the loss of the funds which I have sent to America; because I have placed no less than 80,000 francs aside for this purpose.

?This then, my dear Pauline, is the cause of my silence which must have seemed strange after all I have done.

?There are two ways out of this difficulty if you accept my proposal; the first is to have patience until the entire success of my plans and the security of my capital permits me to offer you something a.s.sured; the second is that you engage your aunt to sound your uncle upon what dispositions he intends to make in regard to you. Far, however, from wishing to diminish his comfort in order to augment yours, I am entirely ready to make sacrifices on my part, to render his old age more agreeable if the actual condition of his own affairs holds him in restraint. But if the tenderness which he feels for you leads him to favor your interests, my intentions would never be to permit him to transfer to you anything during his lifetime, but since in case of his death he would be no longer able to enjoy the use of it himself, it does not seem improper to make a similar request of an uncle who takes the place of a father to you, and who has the right to expect your care and your attentions to make his old age agreeable. a.s.sured from this side, we could then conclude our happy marriage, my dear Pauline, and look upon the money sent away as a _pierre d?attente_, thrown out into the future, to render it more agreeable if it succeeds, but which the future benevolence of your uncle would make good in case of loss.

?Reflect seriously upon what I have written you. Give me your advice in reply. My tenderness for you will always have the ascendency over my prudence. My fate is in your hands; yours is in the hands of your uncle.?

This must have seemed a very solemn and business-like letter for a young colonial unused to the minute exact.i.tude of a French _m?nag?re_. Her reply shows that the heart had discovered what it most desired to know, but that the mind was confused by the ma.s.s of detail on the matter of her fortune which after all must have seemed to her a matter of but secondary importance.

She wrote in reply: ?Your letter, Monsieur, my good friend, has thrown me into extreme distress; I did not feel strong enough to reply myself; nor did I feel either that I ought to communicate it to my aunt, her tenderness for me which is her chief merit in regard to me, could not help me in the least. You will no doubt be very much astonished when you learn the intrepid act which I decided upon; the moment was favorable, your letter urgent, my embarra.s.sment more inspiring than the most prudent counsel. I went and threw myself into the arms of my uncle, I opened to him my heart without reserve, I implored his advice and his tenderness. At last I dared to show him your letter, although without your permission my good friend; all this was done on the impulse but how glad I am that I overcame my timidity, so that he could read into my soul! It seemed to me that my confidence in him augmented his fondness for me. In truth, my good friend, I did well to go to him. I acquired in reasoning with him the cert.i.tude of his attachment for me, and what pleases me still more I found him full of esteem for you and he also renders you all the justice which I am sure you merit. I love my uncle a thousand times more because of this.

As to the business of your letter, he wishes to confer with you himself. I should manage this too badly to undertake it. He wishes to see you very soon. You have written me that your fate is in my hands, and that mine is in the hands of my uncle; in my turn I give my interests over to you, if you love me as I believe, you will be able to cause a little of your ardor to pa.s.s over to my uncle; he complains that he is bound already.

?My good friend, in this conversation, your heart and your mind must work at the same time; nothing resists you when you really set your heart upon it. Give me this proof of your tenderness. I shall regard your success in this as the most convincing proof of the zeal which you have for what you so sweetly call your happiness and which your Pauline could not read without a fearful beating of the heart. Adieu, my good friend, I hope that your first visit when you come back from Versailles, will be to my uncle.

Think of all the respect which you owe him if he is to be yours. I stop, for I feel myself ready to write foolishly. _Bonsoir, m?chant!_?

Whatever may have taken place at the meeting between Beaumarchais and the uncle, the results were not such as permitted an immediate marriage. It was therefore postponed until the Santo Domingo matter cleared itself. In the meantime, the lovers saw each other frequently and in the intervals letters were exchanged. Those of Beaumarchais are in every tone; sometimes a lengthy and profound dissertation on the nature of love which accords well with the philosophic side which is by no means the least developed in his surprisingly complex character; others reveal some touch of a longing for the deeper sentiment of a pure affection which shall be all his own; while others totally at variance with these are in a light jovial vein.

The following presents an epistle of this type:

?_Bonjour_, my aunt; I embrace you, my amiable Pauline; your servitor, my charming Perrette. My little children, love one another; this is the precept of the apostle word for word. May the evil that one of you wishes another fall back upon his own head; this is the malediction of the prophet. This part of my discourse is not made for tender, feeling souls like yours, I know it, and I never think without an extreme satisfaction how nature, which has made you so amiable, has given you such a portion of sensibility, of equity, and of moderation which permits you to live so happily together and me to be in the midst of so charming a society. This one will love me as a son, that one as a friend and my Pauline, uniting all these sentiments in her good little heart, will inundate me with a deluge of affection, to which I will reply following the power given by Providence to your zealous servitor, your sincere friend, your future....

_Peste!_ what a serious word I was going to p.r.o.nounce! It would have pa.s.sed the limits of the profound respect with which I have the honor to be, Mademoiselle, etc., etc.?

Matters were at this pa.s.s when Beaumarchais left Paris for Madrid. Soon after his arrival there, news of an alarming nature began to reach France from Santo Domingo. The uncle had met with an unscrupulous relative of Pauline and very soon money and merchandise were lost, and as a crowning misfortune the uncle suddenly died.

The elder Caron, in writing to his son, seems to have intimated a suspicion of foul play, for the son replies from Madrid, after quoting a line from his father?s letter, ?What do you mean by that? If it is simply that our funds are lost that is a misfortune no doubt, but truly the other thought is far worse. My heart aches to think of my poor uncle who, having a presentiment of misfortune and death, went to meet his fate with so much good grace; but do not believe that anyone has hastened his end, for we have no proof and the suspicion is the most odious that can enter into the mind of man; the climate alone, even where there are no worries or enfeeblement, carries off two-thirds of the men and it is certainly sufficient calamity for us to feel that we have sent him to a natural death, without gnawing our hearts out by the dreadful idea that we sent him there to be a victim.

?My sisters at Madrid know nothing of my real sorrow. I could have wished that you yourself might have been spared the knowledge of it.?

That Beaumarchais conceived the idea of himself going to the West Indies, is proved by a pa.s.sage in one of his letters to his father in which he speaks of his design to sell his appointment at court and go with Pauline to settle in Santo Domingo.

Through some of the letters of the elder Caron we have a picture of the delightful home life of the family and the gaiety of the sisters of this brilliant brother. On the 22nd of January, the father writes, ?Nothing more beautiful than the festival at Beaufort could be imagined.

Boisgarnier and Pauline shone with their usual brilliancy. They danced until two, after the concert and the supper; there was nothing wanting but our Beaumarchais.?

Julie also wrote to a friend. ?We played comedies and we made love, there was a company of forty-five persons and your Julie pleased generally in all her r?les. Everyone declared her one of the best actresses. What I say here is not to praise her, because every one knows how modest she is; it is only because of your weakness, and to justify your choice in having made her your friend. We are preparing another more agreeable festival for the return of my brother.?

Of Julie?s manner of love-making we shall permit her to tell us, a little later, in her own way. For the moment, let it suffice to state the fact, that a certain Chevalier du S----, a gifted young man with no fortune, but with a name and a position of honor, had been for some time very a.s.siduous in his attention to the favorite sister of Beaumarchais. He had been well received by the family and had asked her hand in marriage. He was also a native of Santo Domingo, though in no way connected with Pauline, whom he met for the first time at the home of his friends, in rue de Cond?.

It does not concern us in the study which we are making to enter very deeply into the merits of this young man since in the end he does not ally himself with the family; we shall, however, be forced to speak of him later, as it is he who turns out to be the other Clavico, who deserts Julie and carries off Pauline. In how far these two are justified for their double desertion, the reader may judge if he has the patience to follow the story to its completion. For the present, let us turn our attention to another pair of lovers, less romantic, perhaps, at least so far as the hero is concerned,--but possessed of more sterling qualities.

It will be remembered that the youngest sister of Beaumarchais, Mademoiselle de Boisgarnier, was rather an attractive, though slightly affected, little body. A certain young man, Janot de Miron, had been introduced into the home of the Caron family and had fallen much in love with the rather disdainful young woman in question.

She seems in the beginning to have been but slightly touched by his ardent addresses. She did not find him elegant enough for her fastidious taste.

But Miron was a tenacious young man whose ardor was only stimulated by the coldness and disdain of her whose heart he never despaired of conquering.

Beaumarchais, unconscious of this and seeing his sister?s indifference, had written from Madrid proposing another alliance. Miron, learning of the interference of his friend, promptly grew furious and wrote an indignant letter in which he indulged freely in injurious personalities.

The reply of Beaumarchais is so characteristic and shows so clearly the crude strength of his nature as well as his sense of justice that we take from it a rather long extract. The affair once settled, true to the instincts of his warm heart, the matter was not only forgiven but also completely forgotten.

Beaumarchais wrote: ?It is my turn to reply, my dear Miron, to the very astounding letter which I have just received from you.... I want to tell you now, that long ago I was tired of sacrifices and that my one desire has been that everyone around me should be happy; you alone seem to imagine that you have the right to complain of my proceedings. I am not touched by your reproaches, I have done my duty by everyone. I do not need to prove this, that does not concern me now--but to refute the most heavy, awkward, disagreeable jesting which is the tone of your letter, my friend.

I am most astonished that those Sapphos of sisters of mine did not prevent your putting such impertinence into the post. It is a fact that you are not made for jesting but for more serious matters. Nothing could be more ridiculous than to see you attempt the lighter vein, which does very well for the little dog of La Fontaine, but which is disgusting in more solid animals. More than this, your ideas are based upon a foundation so false and so equivocally set forth that they fill me with pity.... As far as my sister is concerned, I shall be very happy if I find her married as her heart dictates when I return; if I find her unmarried, I shall put no obstacle in the way of her happiness. I have two left for whom I will provide according to the turn which my affairs take on.... I am in no haste for either of them for I have certain ideas about the future which make me feel that the longer they wait the less they will regret not having been in too much of a hurry.

?And now since I do not pretend to give myself airs in disposing of any of my family without their consent, it would have been easy to draw from me an explanation which would have made your letter unnecessary. I am returning the missive to you that you may have the pleasure of regaling yourself thereon if by chance you have not kept a copy.

?For the rest, your desire to marry my sister is an honor to her--I repeat it--and she is entirely free to choose you if you satisfy her; far from trying to prevent it I give my consent from to-day forth--but always with the understanding that you never confound the rights which you will acquire over her as her husband, with those which you can never have over me. This is what I wish to tell you once for all in order that nothing of this kind may ever again happen between us.

?I take the liberty of begging you to keep to the only tone which will pa.s.s with me--that of friendship. I have need neither of a preceptor who pretends to explore into the motives of my actions, nor of a pedagogue who takes it upon himself to instruct me.

?I do not know why Julie should have communicated to you that which I wrote, and I am still more astonished that she has imagined that your ridiculous letter could affect me. It is my intention never to return to this subject, therefore I beg her by this letter, never again to suffer in her presence that anyone fails in the respect which is due me. I am so indulgent truly, that this need not be denied me.

?You will receive this letter by the way of my father, who sent me yours, so that _All The Family_ may be the witnesses of the way in which I accept your jesting.

?It is not very agreeable to me to think that my sisters, not wishing to take with me an improper tone, make it their business to pa.s.s on to me your words, to relieve themselves of the restraint they have before me.

?After this, jest on as much as you like, you will receive nothing from me to engage a serious quarrel. When you know so little of my life, however, you will spare me your commentaries.

?I am none the less, my dear Miron, your servant and friend

?Beaumarchais.?

As he himself has said, ?with good hearts, anger is only a pressing need for pardon,? so the matter was not difficult to settle. August 27th, 1764, he writes to Julie, ?How is everybody, the christian pedagogue first of all?? and Oct. 26th of the same year, ?I have received your letter of the 9th by which you confirm all that has been told me of the moderation of Boisgarnier. I thank her sincerely. Miron has written to me, but while reading, I felt like saying, ?Miron, what do you want of me with this beautiful letter? A month ago my anger was all gone and all this seems to me but tiresome repet.i.tion.??

In spite of her moderation the youngest sister seems to have sided with her brother at her lover?s expense, for we soon find the former pleading with her in a letter addressed to his father from Madrid, dated January 14, 1765.

?Monsieur and very dear father:

?I have received your last letter dated December 31st--and that of Boisgarnier. Her reply gave me much pleasure. She is a droll creature, but she has a good deal of intelligence and rect.i.tude of character; now, if I am in any way the cause of the coldness between her and her friend, I say in advance that I have entirely given up my resentment and she will do well to follow my example. For whatever opinion he may have of me, I am determined not to quarrel with him.

?The only thing that can hurt me is that he should speak ill of my heart, I don?t care what he says of my mind. The first will always be at his service and the second ready to give him a drubbing if he needs it....

[Ill.u.s.tration: Princess de Lamballe]

?I am indeed sorry if they cannot agree, for Miron is a man who does not lack a single quality which should make an honest woman happy; and if my Boisgarnier is less touched by these qualities than by the defects of a few frivolous attractions (which for my part I do not deny him) then I should say that she is a child who has not yet acquired that experience which prefers happiness to pleasure. To say absolutely what I think, I am convinced that he is right to prefer his qualities to mine, for there are many points where I do not feel that I possess either his virtue or his constancy, and these things are of great price when it is a question of a union for life.

?Therefore I invite my Boisgarnier not to think of our friend except in regard to what there is of him which is infinitely estimable, and soon the matter will adjust itself. I was furious with him for twenty-four hours--nevertheless there is no other man whom I would prefer to be a.s.sociated with as a brother-in-law.

?I understand all that Boisgarnier would say--yes, he plays on the hurdy-gurdy, that is true, his heels are half an inch too high, he has a nasal tw.a.n.g when he sings--he eats raw apples at night, he is cold and didactic when he talks,--he has a certain awkwardness of manner in everything he does; but still the good people of the rue Cond? ought not to be offended at such things;--a wig, a waist coat, a pair of clogs ought not to drive anyone away when he excels in matters of the heart and his mind is in keeping. Adieu Boisgarnier, here is a long article for thee.?

It is interesting to find Beaumarchais candidly acknowledging the lack of certain qualities in himself which at least he knows how to appreciate in others. In his relations with Pauline it will be seen that whatever her real motives may have been, she uses what she considers his inconstancy as a pretext later for her break with him. However, to do him justice, it must be affirmed that there is no evidence that he ever for a moment entertained an idea of abandoning her, or that in his heart he meant to be untrue; yet the fact remains that other women did not lose their charm for him because of her, and while at Madrid he was far from denying himself consolation for being deprived of her society. His letters to her were by no means frequent enough, nor ardent enough to satisfy the longings of a romantic young girl.

Already before his departure for Madrid, he seems to have given ground for complaint, as we find Julie accusing him of levity in a letter to a friend while at the same time she paints in her merriest vein the love-sick condition of the family.

?Our house,? she wrote, ?is a dovecote where everyone lives on love and hope; I am the one who laughs more than the others, because I am the least in love; Beaumarchais is a perverse being who by his levity teases and grieves Pauline. Boisgarnier and Miron discuss sentiment till one loses one?s breath, and impa.s.sion themselves with order up to the point of a sublime disorder. The Chevalier and I are worse than all that; he is as loving as an angel, pa.s.sionate as a seraph, while I am as gay as a linnet, and malicious as a demon. Love does not make me lon-lan-la like the others, and yet in spite of my madness I could not keep from tasting of it. More?s the pity!?

Beaumarchais wrote from Madrid, ?I have this afternoon been to the French Amba.s.sador?s in the _carosse_ of Madame the Marquise de La Croix, who has the goodness to drive me everywhere with her six mules. She is a charming lady who has great credit here by her rank, but still more by reason of her intelligence and the graces which make her dear to all the world. Her society dissipates the dust, the inaction, the ennui, the impatience which seize everyone who remains long in this place. I should die in this dull city if it were not for this delicious company.?

It is quite evident that Beaumarchais is thinking little of Pauline and he will soon find to his chagrin, that she has ceased to think any longer so tenderly of him.

He has not, however, forgotten her interests in Santo Domingo nor his project of going there to settle in case the turn of his affairs should point to that move as the best solution of the difficulties, but in the meantime, he amuses himself in his moments of leisure in the pleasantest way that offers itself.