Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais (; ; 24 January 1732 – 18 May 1799) was a French playwright and diplomat of the Age of Enlightenment. Best known for his three Figaro plays, at various times in his life he was also a watchmaker, inventor, musician, spy, publisher, arms dealer, and revolutionary (both French and American).
Born a Parisian watchmaker's son, Beaumarchais rose in French society and became influential in the court of Louis XV as an inventor and music teacher. He made a number of important business and social contacts, played various roles as a diplomat and spy, and had earned a considerable fortune before a series of costly court battles jeopardized his reputation.
An early French supporter of American independence, Beaumarchais lobbied the French government on behalf of the American rebels during the American War of Independence. Beaumarchais oversaw covert aid from the French and Spanish governments to supply arms and financial assistance to the rebels in the years before France's formal entry into the war in 1778. He later struggled to recover money he had personally invested in the scheme. Beaumarchais was also a participant in the early stages of the 1789 French Revolution.
Early life
Beaumarchais was born Pierre-Augustin Caron in the Rue Saint-Denis, Paris, on 24 January 1732, to André-Charles Caron, a watchmaker from Meaux. The family had previously been Huguenot, but had converted to Roman Catholicism in the wake of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes and the increased persecution of Protestants that followed.
From the age of ten, Beaumarchais had some education at a "country school", where he learned some Latin. At twelve, he left school to apprentice under his father in the craft of watchmaking. He may have used his own experiences during these years as the inspiration for the character of Cherubin when he wrote the Marriage of Figaro.
The first man to take an interest in this new invention was Jean-André Lepaute, the royal clockmaker in France, whose work could be found in the Palais du Luxembourg, Tuileries Palace, the Palais-Royal, and the Jardin des plantes. Beaumarchais was outraged when he read in the September issue of Le Mercure de France that M. Lepaute had just invented a wonderful mechanism for manufacturing a more portable clock, and wrote a strongly-worded letter to that same newspaper defending the invention as his own and urging the French Academy of Sciences to see the proof for themselves. "In the interests of truth and my reputation," he says, "I cannot let such an infidelity go by in silence and must claim as mine the invention of this device." Lepaute defended himself with a statement by three Jesuits maintaining he had shown them such a mechanism in May 1753. While in Spain, he was mostly concerned with striking business deals for Duverney. They sought exclusive contracts for Spain’s newly acquired colony of Spanish Louisiana, and attempted to gain the right to import slaves to the Spanish colonies in the Americas. Beaumarchais went to Madrid with a letter of introduction from the Étienne François, duc de Choiseul, who was now his political patron. Hoping to secure Clavijo's support for his business deals by binding him by marriage, Beaumarchais initially shamed Clavijo into agreeing to marry Lisette, but when further details emerged about Clavijo's conduct, the marriage was called off.
Beaumarchais's business deals dragged on, and he spent much of his time soaking up the atmosphere of Spain, which would become a major influence on his later writings. Although he befriended important figures such as the foreign minister Jerónimo Grimaldi, 1st Duke of Grimaldi, his attempts to secure the contracts for Duverney eventually came to nothing and he went home in March 1765. Although Beaumarchais returned to France with little profit, he had managed to acquire new experience, musical ideas, and ideas for theatrical characters. Beaumarchais considered turning the affair into a play, but decided to leave it to others—including Goethe, who wrote Clavigo in 1774.
Playwright
Beaumarchais hoped to be made consul to Spain, but his application was rejected. Instead he concentrated on developing his business affairs and began to show an interest in writing plays. He had already experimented in writing short farces for private audiences, but he now had ambitions to write for the theatre.
His name as a writer was established with his first dramatic play, Eugénie, which premiered at the Comédie-Française in 1767. This was followed in 1770 by another drama, '. Naturally, the thinly veiled satirization of the aristocracy did not go without opposition. Upon first reading a manuscript of Beaumarchais's play, King Louis XVI stated that "this man mocks everything that must be respected in a government" and refused to let it be performed.
To a lesser degree, the Figaro plays are semi-autobiographical. Gioachino Rossini composed an opera based on the play, Il barbiere di Siviglia, which premiered in 1816.
The sequel, Le Mariage, was initially passed by the censor in 1781, but was soon banned from performance by Louis XVI after a private reading. Queen Marie Antoinette lamented the ban, as did various influential members of her entourage. Nonetheless, the King was unhappy with the play's satire on the aristocracy and overruled the Queen's entreaties to allow its performance. Over the next three years, Beaumarchais gave many private readings of the play, as well as making revisions to try to pass the censor. The King finally relented and lifted the ban in 1784. The play premiered that year and was enormously popular, even with aristocratic audiences. Mozart's opera based on the play, Le Nozze di Figaro premiered just two years later in Vienna.
Beaumarchais's final play, La Mère coupable, premiered in 1792 in Paris. In homage to the great French playwright Molière, Beaumarchais also dubbed La Mère coupable "The Other Tartuffe".
All three Figaro plays enjoyed great success, and are still frequently performed today, as are Mozart's and Rossini's operas. No musical version of the third play has enjoyed any significant success.
Court battles
The death of Duverney on 17 July 1770 triggered a decade of turmoil for Beaumarchais. A few months earlier, the two had signed a statement cancelling all debts that Beaumarchais owed Duverney (about 75,000 pounds), and granting Beaumarchais the modest sum of 15,000 pounds. Goezman countered Beaumarchais's accusations by launching a lawsuit of his own.
On 26 February 1774, Goezman's verdict in the La Blache case was overturned, and he was removed from his post. However, both Beaumarchais and Mme. Goezman were sentenced to "blâme", meaning they were nominally deprived of their civil rights.
The case was so sensational that the judges left the courtroom through a back door to avoid the large, angry mob waiting in front of the court house. In an August 18, 1776, letter to the Committee of Secret Correspondence of the Second Continental Congress, he wrote under the signature of Roderique Hortales & Co.,