BEAUMARCHAIS, Pierre Augustin Caron de, appears to have been one of those persons who, from restlessness of disposition and singularity of character, obtain, in their own age, more celebrity than they are entitled to from their merit or talents. He was born at Paris in 1732, and was the son of a clockmaker, who brought him up to his own trade. From his earliest youth, however, he discovered an inclination for literature, together with a remarkable talent for music. FIis proficiency in this art procured him an introduction to the French court, where he was employed to teach the princesses, daughters of Louis XV., to play on the guitar. At their concerts, which he attended, he became acquainted with the banker Duverney, by whom he was instructed in business, and placed in a situation which was likely to lead to fortune. Beaumarchais first attracted public attention by his drama of Eugenie, which was published in 17β7; but he was chiefly indebted for the notoriety he obtained to the various law-suits in which he became involved after the death of his patron Duverney. Having commenced an action against the Count de la Blache, the grand-nephew of Duverney, for payment of a trifling balance of an account which was due to him by his deceased patron, and the suit having been removed from Aix to Paris, Μ. Goezman, one of the judges of the parliament of Maupéou, which was then very unpopular in the capital, was appointed to report and decide on its merits. Beaumarchais, suspect-ing[7:4:479] that he was excluded from the presence of Goezman by the influence of the Count de la Blache, and thus prevented from explaining the merits of his case, bribed certain dependents of the judge in order to be admitted to an interview. The cause, however, was decided against him before he could obtain an audience; and the whole of the bribe not having been returned, a long correspondence took place, by which Goezman was at length so much exasperated, that he instituted a prosecution against Beaumarchais for an attempt to corrupt him in his judicial capacity. Beaumarchais was acquitted of the charge, while Goezman was found liable to him in damages, and was further convicted of subornation and falsehood in his attempts to substantiate the accusation. But the decision against Goezman having been rescinded, and the principal cause remitted to the parliament of Aix, where it had originally depended, Beaumarchais became again involved with the Count de la Blache in a litigation which originated in the calumnies and undue influence by which the count attempted to overpower his adversary. In this dispute, however, Beaumarchais also prevailed; but the chief advantage which he acquired from these various processes was the astonishing interest and admiration which were universally excited in France by the Pactums or Mémoires which he wrote in his defence; in which the most logical and convincing argument is diversified with the bitterest sarcasm, the keenest raillery, and the relation of incidents as strange and amusing as any which are met with in romance. These able and lively productions, however, procured him many enemies, as they discovered him to be a man of a most resentful and calumnious disposition. He also lost a good deal of the reputation he had acquired, from being involved in a new process, in which he found the advocate Bergasse a more formidable opponent than Goezman or La Blache; and his new Mémoires wanted the spirit and gaiety to which his former ones were indebted for their popularity. Though occupied with these processes and various literary pursuits, Beaumarchais did not neglect the improvement of his fortune. He engaged in various speculations, of which the most profitable was his project of supplying the Americans with arms and ammunition during the war with this country. Having thus gained a considerable fortune, he built a magnificent villa in the Faubourg St Antoine, which he embellished with much taste and at great expense. He afterwards lost some part of the money he had acquired by an expensive and ill-executed edition of the works of Voltaire; and neither the early support which he gave to the principles of the French revolution, nor his importation of fire-arms for the use of the French forces, was sufficient to preserve his property from confiscation, or his person from proscription. The sufferings and dangers which he experienced during this period have been detailed by him m a work entitled Mes Six Epoques, which is written with considerable force and interest. After he had endured every species of accusation and persecution, and had passed some time as an exile from his native country, he returned to France when the storms of the revolution had subsided into a more settled tyranny; and having recovered possession of his villa in the Faubourg St Antoine, he remained there till his death, which happened suddenly i n the year 1799.

The moral character of Beaumarchais seems to have been far from unexceptionable. He was remarkable for extraordinary indiscretion, restlessness, and ambition, an overweening conceit of his own talents, and an undisguised contempt for others. With these defects, it is not won-erful that his conduct should have formed the subject of some absurd calumnies. Laharpe mentions that these w θre propagated to such an extent, that it was at one time reported that he had made away by poison with his two wives, whom he had successively married for their fortunes; a report on which Voltaire is said to have remarked, “Ce Beaumarchais n'est point un empoisonneur, il est trop drole” Even the journey which he undertook to Spain in order to vindicate the honour and secure the happiness of a sister, and which seems to have been the most praiseworthy action of his life, was made the subject of invidious misrepresentations, from which he has vindicated himself in one of his Mémoires against La Blache and Goezman.

Besides his Mémoires, Beaumarchais is the author of various dramatic productions, which made a great noise, and gained him considerable reputation in Paris at the time they appeared. His Eugenie, of which the plot is founded on a story in the Diable Boiteux, and his Deux Amis, which hinges on the embarrassment and perplexity of a merchant on the verge of insolvency, are serious sentimental comedies, written in imitation of Diderot’s Pere de Famille. Eugenie, which was the most successful of the two, is rather a romance carried on by dialogue than a drama. It possesses little pathos or interest, and the only emotion felt in its perusal is a certain degree of curiosity concerning the event of the story. The incidents in Les Deux Amis are flat and insipid; and as it is not sustained by the charms of versification, it fails almost entirely in stage effect. Beaumarchais obtained more success in his dramatic career when he quitted the imitation of Diderot, and, following the natural gaiety of his own genius, represented the lively and entertaining character of Figaro in two successive pieces, Le Barbier de Seville, and La Folle Journée, ou le Mariage de Figaro. The first of these comedies merely turns on the assistance which the Count Almaviva receives from Figaro, the Barbier de Seville, in his stratagem to carry off Rosine by duping an old guardian, by whom she was strictly watched, and who intended to marry her himself. The Mariage de Figaro principally hinges on the scheme devised by the Count Almaviva for marrying a beautiful attendant of his countess to Figaro, with designs which seem to have been suggested by some scenes in the Casina of Plautus. Both pieces are full of lively dialogue, dramatic movement, and ingenious jeux de theatre. The author, however, had at first great difficulty in getting the Mariage de Figaro represented; and the curiosity and expectation of the public were excited to the highest pitch previously to its appearance. It continued to be acted twice a week for two years, and produced immense profits both to the author and the comedians. To a reader of the present day, the chief interest of the Mariage de Figaro arises from the distress experienced by the countess on finding herself forsaken by her husband, and the engaging though not very moral character of the page Cherubin; but in France its popularity might be partly owing to the numerous sarcasms both on the political and judicial administration of the country. This was evidently one of the author’s chief objects, as he boasts in his preface, quil a forme son plan de façon a y faire entrer la critique June foule d’abus qui désolent la société. Beaumarchais has introduced Figaro a third time, in his last drama, La Mere Coupable; and it is generally supposed that by this character, in all the three dramas, he intended to represent himself. Figaro, it is true, is originally a barber, and afterwards a valet; but he is also a poet, a musician, and a great intriguer, whilst the freedom which he uses with his master gives full scope for the development of the character. In La Mere Coupable, he has also introduced, under the name of Begearss, his old opponent the advocate Bergasse. Indeed he says in his preface, Ah! je vous jure que je l’ai vu agir; je n aurais pas pu [inventer.
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Most of the plays of Beaumarchais are preceded by prefaces, in which he has vindicated them against objections, and pointed out their beauties; but, as he was not possessed of much learning or taste, his literary pleadings were not so happy as his judicial ones. Indeed the great secret of Beaumarchais’s success was the perceiving and availing himself of the tone and spirit of the times. The vogue in which the Père de Famille then was, secured applause for his Comedies Larmoyantes. The unpopularity of a parliament intrusted with the administration of justice procured a favourable reception for his Mémoires; and the rising clamour against the government of the country gave additional zest to the sarcasms of ∖X∖eMarmge de Figaro. Of consequence, Beaumarchais, during his life, was more celebrated than respectable, and the reputation he enjoyed in his own age was greater than that which he is likely to preserve with posterity. (q.)