The man now known as Beaumarchais was born Pierre Augustin Caron in Paris on January 24, 1732, the seventh of ten children and the only surviving son. His grandparents were Huguenots (French Protestants) when this religion was illegal, and their watchmaking shop was shunned. (Children of Huguenot marriages were considered to be illegitimate and a certificate of Catholicism was necessary for admission into a trade guild.) Their son, Pierre's father, also a watchmaker, renounced his religion and became a zealous Roman Catholic. He was a man of wide interests; the Governor of Madrid even consulted him for advice on dredging rivers and ports.

All of the family was musical, Pierre playing the violin, flute and harp. At age thirteen, the age of the young page, Cherubin, in Le Barbier de Séville, he left school and was apprenticed to his father. Always curious, he continued his education on his own, reading everything he could. Forming acquaintances with men who introduced him to the theatre, he began to act, leading a double life; watchmaker by day and actor by night. He also started to write poetry. By the age of twenty he had invented a new regulating mechanism for watches which enabled their size to be dramatically reduced. When he confided his invention to the Court watchmaker, the man stole it as his own. Pierre appealed, won his case, and became the Court watchmaker himself! There he made a watch in a ring for Madame Pompadour, the mistress of King Louis XV. He also gave harp lessons to the princesses.

In 1755 Caron gave up his profession as watchmaker and became the Secretary of the Royal Kitchen. As such, his duty was to walk with drawn sword before the meat being carried to the table and to place the dishes before the king. Later he bought the office of Lieutenant-General of Hunting and began writing plays, some of which were performed in the private theatre of the husband of Mme. Pompadour!

In 1768 Pierre Augustin Caron married a rich widow who died within ten months, leaving him penniless. However, he was able to adopt the name of her country estate and become Pierre Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais. He was called upon to go to Madrid and avenge an older sister who had gone to Spain to marry but was jilted there. While in Spain, he became involved in trade with Louisiana and the islands of the Caribbean. Louisiana had been ceded to the Madrid Court as part of the Peace of Paris*, and French exporters could no longer sell goods there. Ever a schemer, like Figaro, he devised a plan such that both French goods and slaves could be sent to Louisiana, and the Spanish armies could be supplied with munitions. When he decided the heir to the Spanish throne was in need of a mistress, he generously supplied him with his own! Returning to France, Beaumarchais carried with him the ideas for the characters who would people his famous plays.

Beaumarchais married another rich widow and had a son, but again lost them both within a short time. Destitute once more, with legal and political problems, he spent time in prison, was deprived of his civil rights and narrowly managed to avoid being sent to the galleys. Through all of this he was working on La Barbier de Séville. In 1774, using the alias Ronac (an anagram of Caron), he was sent to London as a secret agent to retrieve certain scandalous writings about the king's new mistress, Mme. Du Barry. When King Louis XV died, Beaumarchais continued to act as an agent for Louis XVI; writing was merely his hobby. Among other things, he devised a plan for reorganizing the system of tax-gathering and consulted on the distribution of the tobacco shipped from America.

After the Battle of Lexington, France's loyalty was divided. Officially, she disapproved of the American actions (rebellions against monarchs were not to be tolerated), but secretly she supported the colonists against the English who had so humiliated her with the Peace of Paris. Beaumarchais convinced the King that France's best interest lay in a long conflict which would drain England's resources and keep her occupied and away from France. It was also a chance to settle old scores. He wrote:

You will only preserve the peace you desire, Sire, by preventing at all costs the conclusion of peace between England and America, and in preventing the one from triumphing over the other. The sole means of achieving this end is to give to the Americans sufficient help to put their forces on an equal footing with those of England — but no more.

But how to accomplish this? Nothing could be done openly to aid the colonies without a renewal of all-out war with England. At first, French agents, both in England and Europe, negotiated with Benjamin Franklin to provide supplies and arms, and Beaumarchais was certainly one of those involved. However, it was two other Americans who were to have a greater influence on his future dealings with the colonies. Arthur Lee, when he was a young student in France, had met Beaumarchais and, with no authority from Congress, started to negotiate with him for arms. Then Silas Deane (disguised as a merchant) was sent by the Continental Congress to obtain French aid. Beaumarchais started to deal with him, breaking off negotiations with Lee. Furious at being excluded, Lee continuously sent lies to the Congress contradicting Deane's reports about Beaumarchais's role and the compensation due him from the Congress.

It was decided to use Beaumarchais to funnel the aid from the French Government to the colonists. The fictitious firm, Roderigue Hortalez et Cie was founded with private citizen Beaumarchais as its director. Millions of francs were to be secretly advanced to him by the Government, and he was to be allowed to use this money to buy arms and ammunition directly from French arsenals — they were obsolete anyway and were being replaced with new models. With the consent of the King, the plan was implemented. Using additional large amounts of his own money, Beaumarchais assembled and loaded vessels for the shipment of the goods to the colonies. After many delays, they reached Portsmouth, New Hampshire on April 30, 1777, and other shipments followed. Thus reinforced, the colonists had sufficient strength to compel the surrender of General Burgoyne at Saratoga, and the tide of the war shifted**. On hearing the news of the surrender, Beaumarchais hurried to Paris in such haste that his carriage overturned. He was severely injured, but he said, "The charming news from America is a balm to my wounds". The victory at Saratoga finally persuaded the French to come to the open aid of the Americans.

According to the agreement with Silas Deane, Beaumarchais's ships were supposed to have returned loaded with merchandise for his 'company', but Lee wrote secretly to Congress saying that no return cargo was expected; the supplies were a gift from the French Government. The cargo was delivered to Benjamin Franklin who agreed to investigate and turn it over to Beaumarchais if his claims were legitimate. Lee also lied to Franklin, asserting the Frenchman had no claim and that he was merely an adventurer. For many years, claims and counter claims continued. Not knowing what to do, the Congress did nothing. Finally, however, John Jay wrote to Beaumarchais:

Sir: The Congress of the United States of America, sensible of your exertions in their favour, present you with their thanks and assure you of their regard. They lament the inconvenience you have suffered by the great advances made in support of these states. Circumstances have prevented the compliance with their wishes, but they will take the most effective measures in their power to discharge the debt owed to you.

Still, no money was forthcoming. Later Congress ordered an examination of Beaumarchais's claims and appointed Arthur Lee to investigate! Instead of being in the Frenchman's debt, Lee reported, Beaumarchais actually owed the United States! Protests continued, and in 1793 Alexander Hamilton found that the Congress was indeed in debt to Beaumarchais to the amount of 2,280,000 francs. Again nothing was done. Finally, thirty-six years later, the Frenchman, his daughter and grandson journeyed to Washington and received a payment of 800,000 francs, only a fraction of the millions he had spent. Meanwhile, however, Beaumarchais, always the Figaro, continued to act as go-between in other schemes to enrich himself while acting for the good of the colonies. When the French Government formally recognized American independence, it was with words he had written.

Beaumarchais married a third time and had a daughter. He built a huge, expensively furnished mansion across from the Bastille and for a time lived in great style. His house was finished just before the fall of the infamous prison (July 14, 1789). After this momentous event, he was appointed, at his own request, by the Mayor of Paris to supervise its final demolition. During the Terror, he hid outside Paris during the day but returned to his home each evening. Soon scheduled to be one of the victims of the guillotine, he was saved by the fall of Robespierre. With the Directory (1795) he was able to return to Paris where he died on the night of May 18, 1799. The remains of his mansion now lie beneath the Boulevard Beaumarchais.

Beaumarchais rose from being an obscure watchmaker in Paris to being an important member of the French Court and helped to win the American Revolution for the colonies. Today, however, he is remembered almost solely as the author of two plays, Le Barbier de Séville and Le Mariage de Figaro, which were transformed into operas. While these plays are often cited as adding to the atmosphere in France which led to the Revolution, the author himself was a steadfast defender of the monarchy and of the aristocrats. While he wished to rid them of abuses, and bring more freedom to the people and to the press, he himself rejected revolution as a means to that end.

Some quotes of Beaumarchais's reflect the tone of Figaro and can provoke thought and discussion:

I am quick to laugh at everything, so as not to have to cry.
It is not necessary to understand things in order to argue about them.
To make a living, craftiness is better than learnedness.
As long as I don't write about the government, religion, politics, and other institutions, I am free to print anything.

*In 1756, the French and Indian War between the English and the French in the Colonies had merged into the larger Seven Years War in Europe. When the latter ended with the Peace of Paris in 1763, France was no longer a power in the New World. Almost all of her territories there had been divided between Britain and Spain. In 1803, under Napoleon, Louisiana was returned to France and then, within a few weeks, was sold to The United States (The Louisiana Purchase).

**The man who directly made the American victory at Saratoga possible was Benedict Arnold, but General Gates received all of the credit. This helped push the already angry Arnold to treason.

This is a revised version of an article originally written for San Diego Opera.

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Revised July 2010
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