Transcriber's Note

This book was published in two volumes, of which this is the second. The first volume was released as Project Gutenberg ebook #37960, available at [http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/37960]. The index in this volume contains links to pages in the other volume. Although the correctness of these links is verified at the time of posting, these links may not work, for various reasons, for various people, at various times.

Two incorrect index sub-entries for Beaumarchais have been corrected:
jealousies aroused against — page changed from 6 to 304
judged by parliament Maupeou — page changed from 24 to 100

P.A. CARON DE BEAUMARCHAIS

BEAUMARCHAIS
And the War of
American Independence

BY

ELIZABETH S. KITE

Diplôme d’instruction Primaire-Supérieure, Paris, 1905 Member of the Staff of the Vineland Research Laboratory

WITH A FOREWORD BY

JAMES M. BECK

Author of “The Evidence in the Case”

TWO VOLUMES
VOLUME TWO
ILLUSTRATED

BOSTON
RICHARD G. BADGER
THE GORHAM PRESS

Copyright, 1918, by Richard G. Badger
All Rights Reserved
Made in the United States of America The Gorham Press, Boston, U. S. A.

Copyright, 1918, by Richard G. Badger
All Rights Reserved
Made in the United States of America The Gorham Press, Boston, U. S. A.

“The faith of a believer is a spring to which uncertain convictions yield; this was the case of Beaumarchais with the King in the cause of American Independence.”

Gaillardet, in Le Chevalier d’Eon.

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

BEAUMARCHAIS

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗
And the War of
American Independence
‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗

CHAPTER XV

Figaro-“Feindre d’ignorer ce qu’on sait, de savoir tout ce qu’on ignore; d’entendre ce qu’on ne comprend pas, de ne point ouïr ce qu’on entend; surtout de pouvoir au delà de ses forces; avoir souvent pour grand secret de cacher qu’il n’y en a point; s’enfermer pour tailler des plumes, et paraître profond, quand on n’est, comme on dit, que vide et creux; jouer bien ou mal un personage; répandre des espions et pensionner des traîtres; amollir des cachets, intercepter des lettres, et tâcher d’ennoblir la pauvreté des moyens par l’importance des objets; voilà toute la politique ou je meure.”

Le Comte—“Eh! c’est l’intrigue que tu définis!”

Figaro—“La politique, l’intrigue, volontiers; mais, comme je les crois un peu germaines, en fasse qui voudra!”

Le Mariage de Figaro, Act III, Scene V.

Curious History of the Chevalier d’Eon—Secret Agent of Louis XV—The Chevalier Feigns to Be a Woman—Curiosity of London Aroused—Necessity for the French Government to Obtain Possession of State Papers in d’Eon’s Hands—Beaumarchais Accepts Mission—Obtains Possession of the Famous Chest.

IT was the summer of 1775. The moment was approaching when the attention of Europe would be directed towards the events transpiring on the other side of the Atlantic, in that New World, of which the old was as yet scarcely conscious. The stand for freedom, for individual rights, for the liberty of expansion which was there made, was destined to rouse the warmest sympathies amongst all classes, especially in France. The enthusiasm which greeted the resistance of the colonies rapidly became a national sentiment which the French government was unable to suppress or even to keep within bounds. To direct this enthusiasm into a practical channel that should lead to immediate and efficient support of the insurged colonies whilst awaiting the active intervention of the government, was to be primarily the work of one man, and that man was Beaumarchais.

But in starting for London on the present occasion, he was unconscious of the historic importance which this journey was destined to assume. The mission with which he was charged was one of the most singular with which any government ever seriously commissioned one of its agents.

There was living at this time in London the Chevalier d’Eon de Beaumont, who was a former agent of the occult diplomacy of Louis XV, and who at this time was an exile from his country, to which he had been forbidden to return in consequence of the scandalous and disgraceful quarrel that had occurred between him and the French Ambassador, the Comte de Guerchy, years before. Although publicly disgraced, he retained the secret confidence of the old King, who allowed him an annual income of 12,000 francs. The present government was willing to continue this pension, but on condition that the chevalier give up the secret correspondence of the late King, which remained in his possession, and of which it was very important that the French government should obtain control. It was to negotiate the remittance of this correspondence that Beaumarchais was commissioned the summer of 1775. The oddity of the character with which he had to deal, rather than the actual nature of the mission, was what made the negotiation so difficult and the proceedings so unusual.

Several years previous, about 1771, a rumor began to circulate in England that the Chevalier in question was really a woman disguised. Although one of the most belligerent of characters, who “smoked, drank and swore like a German trooper,” it appears that “the rarity of his blond beard and the smallness of his form (Gaillardet),” “a certain feminine roundness of the face, joined to a voice equally feminine, contributed to give credit to the fable (note of M. de Loménie, sur le Chevalier d’Eon).” There were also certain facts in the life of the chevalier which supported this theory; among others it was known that as a very young man he had been sent by Louis XV in the guise of a woman to the court of St. Petersburg, where he had succeeded in being admitted as reader to the Empress Elizabeth.

As the Chevalier d’Eon was a widely known personage in English society, the matter took on great proportions and became a subject of betting according to the manière anglaise. D’Eon, who seems to have cared primarily for one thing, namely, notoriety of whatever sort, secretly encouraged the dispute, although he wrote at the same time to the Comte de Broglie: “It is not my fault if the court of Russia during my sojourn here, has assured the court of England that I am a woman.... It is not my fault if the fury of betting upon all sorts of things is such a national malady among the English that they often risk more than their fortunes upon a single horse.... I have proved to them, and I will prove it as often as they wish, that I am not only a man, but a captain of dragoons, with his arms in his hands.” And yet he was able to keep the world in a state of complete mystification as to his true sex, up to the time of his death in 1810.

Voltaire says of him: “The whole adventure confounds me. I cannot understand either d’Eon, or the ministers of his time, or the measures of Louis XV, or those being made at present. I understand nothing of the whole affair.” In his Memoires sur le Chevalier d’Eon de Beaumont, M. Gaillardet says: “The history of the Chevalier d’Eon was one of the most singular and most controverted enigmas of the 18th century. That century finished without its being known what was the veritable sex of that mysterious being, who after being successively doctor of law, advocate in the Parliament of Paris, censor of belles-lettres, secretary of embassy at St. Petersburg, captain of dragoons, Chevalier de Saint Louis, minister plenipotentiary to London, suddenly, at the age of 46 years announced himself to be a woman, assumed the costume of his new rôle, and conserved it until the time of his death in 1810.”

As we shall presently see, and for reasons wholly justifiable, it is Beaumarchais who works this transformation in the life of d’Eon. Nothing in relation to his strange character is so passing strange as the fact that the King and his minister, and above all that Beaumarchais himself, the cleverest of men—should have been completely duped by the Chevalier as to the matter of his sex. It even went so far as to be generally believed that the demoiselle d’Eon was seriously in love with Beaumarchais, and the latter himself believed it. In the most skillful way the chevalier endeavored to make use of this deceit to further his own ends. Failing in this, and having made the fatal avowal and received the King’s orders to assume the garb of a woman, the fury of d’Eon knew no bounds. Powerless to wreak his vengeance in any other way, he endeavored by calumny and abuse to thwart the career of the man upon whom he had been able to impose only in the matter of his sex. Beaumarchais readily excused all the insults cast at him, believing as he did, that this is the manner of revenge of the strange creature, “his amazon”—(as d’Eon is familiarly called in the correspondence between himself and the minister Vergennes)—for finding that her love is not requited.

But to return to the facts of the case: D’Eon, at the time of the death of Louis XV was living in constant hope of being restored to favor and allowed to return to France. His pension of 12,000 francs had proved all too small for his support and he was heavily in debt. No sooner had the young king, Louis XVI, mounted the throne than the Chevalier sent word to Vergennes, minister of foreign affairs, announcing that he had in his possession important letters which were of such a nature that should they fall into the hands of the English, it might precipitate a war between the two nations. An agent was therefore dispatched to enter into negotiations. “Understanding,” says Gaillardet, “that if he did not profit by this occasion, he would have little to expect from the new reign, d’Eon resolved to put a high price on the papers in his possession. He demanded: first, that he be solemnly justified of the imputations directed against him by his enemies—especially the family of the Comte de Guerchy; second, that all the sums, indemnities, advances, etc., due him for the past 26 years, be paid, amounting in all to 318,477 livres, 16 sous.”

Unable to come to any reasonable terms, the negotiations were broken off and the agent returned to France. He was replaced by another who was equally unsuccessful, and for a time the matter was dropped.

In the meantime noise of the affair reached the English government, and d’Eon soon had the satisfaction of receiving large offers from that quarter if he would consent to give up the papers. The Chevalier, whatever his faults, or the violence of his character, was not a traitor; he had no intention of giving the papers in his possession to the English at any price, but he was well satisfied that their value should be thus enhanced.

In the meantime, his pension was suspended and finding himself without funds, “he borrowed 5,000 pounds from his devoted friend and protector, the Lord Ferrers, giving him as security a sealed chest, which, Ferrers supposed, contained the famous correspondence. He took care, however,” says Gaillardet, “to withdraw from that deposit precisely the personal documents of the late King, which were the most important for the court of France and for himself. These papers contained a plan for the restitution of the Stuarts, a descent upon England, and other dreams, constituting what d’Eon called le grand projet of Louis XV.”

At this juncture Beaumarchais appeared on the scene. “To interest the latter in his cause, and give him a mark of confidence (Gaillardet) d’Eon avows with tears that he is a woman, and this avowal was made with so much art that Beaumarchais did not conceive the least doubt.”

D’Eon recounted the history of the papers in his possession, and the offers which he had resisted. Charmed to oblige a woman so interesting by her sorrows, her courage, her esprit, Beaumarchais addressed at once touching letters to the King in favor of his new friend. “When one thinks,” he writes, “that this creature, so much persecuted, belongs to a sex to which one forgives everything, the heart is touched with a sweet compassion.” “I do assure you, Sire,” he writes elsewhere, “that in taking this astonishing creature with dexterity and gentleness, although she is embittered by twelve years of misfortune, she can yet be brought to enter under the yoke, and to give up all the papers of the late King on reasonable conditions.”

As to the motives which could have induced le chevalier d’Eon to avow himself a woman, his biographer, already quoted, gives the following explanation:

“His military and diplomatic career was about finished; disgraced, he would disappear from the scene of the world and fall into obscurity. But precisely shadow and silence were a horror to him. If there was a mystery in his existence, if they learned that he was a woman, he would become the hero of the day and of the century; his services would then appear extraordinary. This metamorphosis would attract to him the attention of Europe, and enable him more easily to obtain satisfaction from the French government, who would no longer refuse a woman the price of blood shed and services rendered.”

Both Gaillardet and Loménie, after a careful examination of all the correspondence in relation to the affair between the Chevalier d’Eon and Beaumarchais, assure us that not a line exists which does not prove that the latter was completely deceived as to the matter of the sex of the Chevalier.

Lintilhac, however, thinks that he has found proofs to the contrary in a letter which begins, “Ma pauvre Chevalière, or whatever it pleases you to be with me....” London, Dec. 31, 1775. Gudin, in his life of Beaumarchais, says, “It was at a dinner of the Lord Mayor Wilkes that I encountered d’Eon for the first time. Struck to see the cross of St. Louis shining on his breast, I asked Mlle. Wilkes who that chevalier was; she named him to me. ‘He has,’ I said, ‘the voice of a woman.’ It is probably from that fact that the talk has all come. At that time I knew nothing more about him; I was still ignorant of his relations with Beaumarchais. I soon learned them from herself. She avowed to me with tears (it appears to have been the manner of d’Eon—note of Loménie) that she was a woman, and showed me her scars, remains of wounds which she had received, when, her horse killed under her, a squadron of cavalry passed over her body and left her dying on the plain.”

“No one,” says Loménie, “could be more naïvely mystified than is Gudin. In the first period of the negotiation, d’Eon is full of attentions for Beaumarchais; he calls him his ‘guardian angel’ and sends him his complete works in fourteen volumes; for this curious being, this dragoon, woman and diplomat, was at the same time a most fruitful scribbler of paper. He has characterised himself very well in the following letter: ‘If you wish to know me, Monsieur the Duke, I will tell you frankly that I am only good to think, imagine, question, reflect, compare, read, write, to run from the rising to the setting sun, from the south to the north, and to fight on the plain or in the mountains ... or I will use up all the revenues of France in a year, and after that give you an excellent treatise on economy. If you wish to have the proof, see all I have written in my history of finance, upon the distribution of public taxes.’”

This, then, was the strange being with whom Beaumarchais had to deal. On the 21st of June, 1775, he received from Vergennes the following letter, which shows in the best possible light the credit which the secret agent of the government had already acquired. He wrote:

“I have under my eyes, Monsieur, the report which you have given M. de Sartine of our conversation, touching M. d’Eon; it is of the greatest exactitude; I have taken in consequence the orders of the King. His Majesty authorizes you to assure to M. d’Eon the regular payment of the pension of 12,000 francs.... The article of the payment of his debts is more difficult; the pretensions of d’Eon are very high in that respect; they must be considerably reduced if we are to come to any arrangement.... M. d’Eon has a violent character, but I do him the justice to believe that his soul is honest, and that he is incapable of treason.... It is impossible that M. d’Eon takes leave of the English King; the revelation of his sex does not permit it; it would be ridiculous for both courts.... You are wise and prudent, you know mankind, and I have no doubt but that you will be able to arrange the affair with d’Eon, if it can be done. Should the enterprise fail in your hands, we shall be forced to consider that it cannot succeed and resolve to accept whatever may come from it.... I am very sensible, Monsieur, of the praises which you have been so good as to give me in your letter to M. de Sartine. I aspire to merit them, and accept them as a gage of your esteem, which will always be flattering to me. Count, I beg you, upon my own, and upon the sentiments with which I have the honor to be very sincerely, Monsieur, etc.

“De Vergennes.

“A Versailles, June 21st, 1775.”

July 14, 1775, Beaumarchais wrote to M. de Vergennes announcing that he had obtained possession of the keys of the famous chest, which he had sealed with his own seal and which was deposited in a safe place. “Whatever happens, M. le Comte, I believe that I have at least cut off one head of the English hydra ... the king and you may be quite certain that everything will rest in statu quo in England, and that no one can abuse us from now to the end of the negotiation which I believe about finished.” But in the meantime, while undertaking the settlement of the affair with d’Eon, the active mind of Beaumarchais had become enflamed with an ardent zeal for the cause of liberty, as it was being then defended on the other side of the Atlantic. “One of the first,” says Gaillardet, “he had embraced the cause of the Americans, had espoused it with a sort of love that partook of idolatry.... He followed every phase with an interest which nothing discouraged, not ceasing to hope in the midst of reverses, triumphing and clapping his hands at every victory.... He excused their faults, exalted their virtues, plead for them with all the faculties of his esprit and of his soul, before those whom he wished to interest in their fate.”

Every voyage back to Paris, which the interests of his mission necessitated, every letter which it occasioned, was made to subserve itself to this one end which transcended all others; namely, to rouse the young King from that state of indecision and indifference to which he was born, and where he seemed likely to remain.

In the next chapter this subject will be taken up in all its detail; for the present it is necessary only to remind the reader that the matter of which we are now treating is all the while secondary in the mind of Beaumarchais. It is, however, of vital importance in that, at the beginning, it offers the avenue of approach to the King and his ministers which might otherwise have been wanting. Through the masterly way in which he settled the affair with d’Eon, the confidence of the King and of his minister was secured. Before the affair was terminated, an open channel had been established which permitted the whole current of the genius of Beaumarchais to flow direct to its goal.

It will be remembered that the Chevalier d’Eon had borrowed five thousand pounds of his friend the English Admiral, Lord Ferrers, and had left him as security the chest containing the famous correspondence of the late King. Before it could be delivered to Beaumarchais there were many difficult questions to settle, the chief one being the Chevalier’s return to France, owing to the resentment still felt by the family of the Comte de Guerchy towards the Chevalier, and the latter’s well known violence of temper. The King and M. de Vergennes demanded absolute oblivion of the past and a guarantee that no further scandals should arise. This was difficult to assure, owing to the fiery nature of the Chevalier. Already, as we have seen, the latter had avowed “with tears” that he was a woman.

August 7th, 1775, M. de Vergennes wrote to the King, “If your Majesty deigns to approve the propositions of the Sieur de Beaumarchais to withdraw from the hands of the Sieur d’Eon the papers which it would be dangerous to leave there, I will authorize him to terminate the affair. If M. d’Eon wishes to take the costume of his sex, there will be no objection to allowing him to return to France, but under any other form he should not even desire it.”

In a letter to Beaumarchais, the 26th of the same month, M. de Vergennes wrote: “Whatever desire I may have to see, to know, and to hear M. d’Eon, I cannot hide from you a serious uneasiness which haunts me. His enemies watch, and will not pardon easily all that he has said of them.... If M. d’Eon would change his costume everything would be said.... You will make of this observation the use which you shall judge suitable.”

The idea appeared not only good to Beaumarchais, but to offer, perhaps, the only solution to the difficulty. He therefore made this the condition of settlement of the debts of d’Eon, the continuation of his pension, as well as of his being allowed to return to France. The same motives which had actuated the Chevalier to declare himself a woman worked now in favor of what Beaumarchais, endowed with full power in his regard, demanded of him. Realizing, as M. de Vergennes had done, that if the matter were not now adjusted, it would never be again taken up; realizing too that his notoriety would be increased tenfold by this metamorphosis, he decided to submit to what was imposed upon him.

Early in October, Beaumarchais wrote to M. de Vergennes: “Written promises to be good are not sufficient to arrest a head which enflames itself always at the simple name of Guerchy; the positive declaration of his sex and the engagement to live hereafter in the costume of a woman is the only barrier which can prevent scandal and misfortunes. I have required this and have obtained it.”

As a matter of fact, on the 5th of October, the Chevalier signed the famous contract, in which he promised to deliver the entire correspondence of the late King, declared himself a woman and engaged to “retake and wear the costume of that sex to the time of his death;” and he added with his own hand, “which I have already worn on divers occasions known to his Majesty.” The agent of the French Government on his side agreed to deliver a contract or pension of 12,000 francs, as well as “more considerable sums which shall be remitted for the acquittal of the debts of the Chevalier in England.” “Each of the contractants,” said Loménie, “reserved thus a back door; if the more considerable sums did not seem considerable enough, the Chevalier intended to keep a portion of the papers, so as to obtain still more funds. Beaumarchais, on his side, had no intention of paying all the debts which it should please the Chevalier to declare, and had demanded of the King the faculty to batailler to employ his own expression—with the demoiselle d’Eon, from 100,000 to 150,000 francs, reserving the right to give him the money in fractional parts, and to extend or retract the sum according to the confidence which that cunning personage should inspire.”

After the contract was signed, Beaumarchais still holding the money in reserve, demanded the papers of which it was questioned. The chest was produced. Suddenly realizing, however, that he had no authority to open the chest and to examine the contents, and having but small confidence in the veracity of the chevalier, he hastened back to Versailles, obtained the desired permission, and reappeared in London with his new commission. On opening the chest he found indeed that papers of but small importance were contained therein. D’Eon, blushing, confessed that the letters of which the French government desired to obtain possession were hidden under the floor of his room in London.

“She conducted me to her room,” wrote Beaumarchais, “and drew from under the floor five boxes, well sealed and marked, ‘Secret Papers to remit to the King alone’, which she assured me contained all the secret correspondence, and the entire mass of the papers which she had in her possession. I began by making an inventory, and marking them all so that none could be withdrawn; but, better to assure myself that the entire sequence was there contained, I rapidly ran over them, while she made the inventory.”

This want of honor in the Chevalier, whose security left with the Lord Ferrers had been proved of comparatively little value, dispensed Beaumarchais, so he considered, from the necessity of acquitting the full debt contracted by d’Eon. This was afterwards most bitterly reproached to him by the Chevalier. In a letter to Lord Ferrers, Beaumarchais wrote: “I have lived too long and know mankind too well to count upon the gratitude of anyone, or to feel the least annoyance when I see those fail whom I have the most obliged.” (From a letter dated Jan. 8, 1776, to Lord Ferrers,—Gaillardet.)

The note of 13,933 pounds sterling first addressed to M. de Vergennes had since been increased by 8,223 pounds sterling, of which d’Eon demanded the payment. Beaumarchais, however, true to the interest of the King and his minister, to their great satisfaction, terminated the transaction for a little less than 5,000 pounds sterling. From the determined refusal of Beaumarchais to increase the sum arose the wild fury of d’Eon, who saw his last hope escape him. His invectives against Beaumarchais, his abuse, all had their origin here.

“I assured this demoiselle,” wrote Beaumarchais to Vergennes, “that if she was prudent, modest and silent, and if she conducted herself well, I would render so good an account of her to the minister of the King, and even to His Majesty, that I hoped to obtain for her new advantages. I did this the more willingly because I had still in my possession nearly 41,000 francs, from which I expected to recompense every act of submission and of sobriety on her part, by acts of generosity approved successively by the King and by you, Monsieur le Comte, but only as favors, and not as acquittals. It was in this way that I hoped still to dominate and bring into subjection this fiery and deceitful creature.”

CHARLES DE BEAUMONT
dit Mademoiselle le Chevalier D’Eon
1728 - 1810

Early in December, Beaumarchais appeared in Versailles with his famous chest, containing at last the entire mass of papers, the negotiation of which had occupied the minister of Louis XVI since the time of the latter’s accession to the throne. Overjoyed at the successful termination of the affair, the King and his minister testified their satisfaction with warmth.

A very honorable discharge was given their agent with a certificate which terminated thus: “I declare that the King has been very well satisfied with the zeal which he has shown on this occasion, as well as with the intelligence and dexterity with which he has acquitted himself of the commission which his Majesty has confided to him. The King has therefore ordered me to deliver the present attestation to serve him at all times and in all places where it may be necessary.

“Made at Versailles, the 18th of December, 1775.

“Signed: Gravier de Vergennes.”

The matter of the papers was indeed settled; they were safe in the hands of the government, and all uneasiness in regard to them was at an end; not so Beaumarchais with his amazone intéressante. Furious to find that his exorbitant demands upon the French government had miscarried, d’Eon thought only of wreaking his vengeance upon Beaumarchais. After exhausting himself with very “masculine abuse” upon his “austere friend” (Loménie), he suddenly, with the same art with which he had avowed himself a woman, set about convincing Beaumarchais that he was in love with him, uttering bitter reproaches for the cruelty, hardness and injustice with which he had treated an unhappy woman, who in a moment of weakness had revealed herself to him. “Why,” cried this disguised dragoon, “why did I not remember that men are good for nothing upon this earth but to deceive the credulity of women, young and old?... I still thought that I was only rendering justice to your merits, admiring your talents, your generosity; I loved you already no doubt; but this situation was still so new for me that I was very far from realizing that love could be born in the midst of trouble and sorrow.”

In a note, M. de Loménie remarked that what there was specially piquant in this correspondence of d’Eon and Beaumarchais is that the former, while posing as a woman, “often gives an enigmatic turn to his phrases, as though he wished to establish for the day when the fraud would be unveiled, that he had been able to dupe a man as clever as the author of the Barbier de Séville, and that he duped him in mocking at him to his very face, without being suspected. Beaumarchais, for his part, amused himself at the expense of that vieille Dragonne in love, and confirmed himself more and more in the error as d’Eon more adroitly simulated the anger of an offended old maid.”

Beaumarchais wrote to M. de Vergennes: “Everyone tells me that this crazy woman is crazy over me. She thinks that I undervalue her, and women never forgive similar offenses. I am very far from doing so; but who could ever have imagined that to serve the King well in this affair, I should have been forced to become gallant cavalier to a capitaine de dragons? The adventure appears to me so ridiculous that I have all the trouble in the world to regain my seriousness so as suitably to finish this memoir.”

If d’Eon had the satisfaction of duping Beaumarchais in a certain sense, he failed utterly in inducing him to loosen the strings of the royal purse which he carried, and without which nothing was accomplished. Finding that Beaumarchais was inexorable on this point, all the pent-up fury of the chevalier blazed forth. He began at once addressing interminable memoirs to the minister Vergennes, full of accusations against his agent, couched in the coarsest and most violent language, attributing to the latter all the epithets that fall so glibly from his pen, “the insolence of a watchmaker’s boy, who by chance had discovered perpetual motion.”

“Beaumarchais,” said Loménie, “received these broadsides of abuse with the calm of a perfect gentleman: ‘She is a woman,’ he wrote to M. de Vergennes, ‘and a woman so frightfully surrounded that I pardon her with all my heart; she is a woman—that word says everything.’”

But exactly this was what the chevalier did not want; he did not want to be pardoned by Beaumarchais; he wanted a quarrel with him, and to have his accusations credited by the minister. He succeeded in neither of his objects, although his resentment and his desire for revenge augmented rather than diminished with time. Returned to France, he openly accused Beaumarchais of having retained for himself money that was destined for him. His abuse was so violent that in self-defense the accused man appealed for justification to the minister, and received the following letter, which bears date of January 10th, 1778:

“I have received, Monsieur, your letter of the 3rd of this month, and I have not been able to see without surprise that the demoiselle d’Eon imputes to you having appropriated to yourself to her prejudice the funds which she supposes to have been destined for her. I have difficulty in believing, Monsieur, that this demoiselle has been guilty of an accusation so calumnious; but if she has done so, you should not have the slightest disquietude or be in the least affected; you have the gage and the guarantee of your innocence in the account which you have given of your management of the affair, in the most approved form, founded upon the most authentic titles, and in the discharge which I have given you of the approval of the King. Far from the possibility of your disinterestedness being suspected, I have not forgotten, Monsieur, that you made no account of your personal expenses, and that you never allowed me to perceive any other interest than to facilitate to the demoiselle d’Eon the means of returning to her native land.

“I am very perfectly, Monsieur, your very humble and very obedient servitor,

“De Vergennes.”

Beaumarchais was at this time far too deeply engaged in his gigantic mercantile operations to be seriously disturbed by the accusations of the Chevalier d’Eon. Far greater difficulties were to overwhelm him, and still more signal ingratitude was to be his portion. He will accept that too, in very much the same spirit in which he has accepted all the rest.

CHAPTER XVI

“Vor der Ankunft Dean’s und Franklin’s, Beaumarchais war ohne Frage, der bestunterrichtete Kenner Englands und der Vereinigten Staaten auf dem continent.”

Bettelheim, “Beaumarchais: Eine Biographie.”

Beaumarchais’s Earliest Activities in the Cause of American Independence—First Steps of the Government of France—Bonvouloir—Discord Among Parties in England—Beaumarchais’s Memoirs to the King—Meets Arthur Lee—Lee’s Letter to Congress—King Still Undecided—Curious Letter of Beaumarchais, with Replies Traced in the Handwriting of the King.

NO record of the actual awakening of Beaumarchais’s interest in the War of American Independence has ever been brought to light, but certain it is that for nearly a year before the date of any document contained in the French Archives, Beaumarchais was the “real, though secret, agent of the Minister Vergennes in London.”

The earliest written allusion to any definite commission from the government in regard to this matter is found in the letter of Beaumarchais to Vergennes, written July 14, 1775, a part of which, relating to the Chevalier d’Eon, is given in the previous chapter. After announcing exultantly the possession of the keys to the famous chest of which it had just been questioned, he continued: “I would return at once to give the details of what I have accomplished if I were only charged with one object; but I am charged with four, and find myself obliged to leave for Flanders with milord Ferrers and in his vessel. It would not be just that the King and M. de Sartine were less content than the King and M. de Vergennes....

“In politics, it is not sufficient to work, one must succeed....

“I shall take no repose until I have informed you in regard to the veritable state of things in England, a knowledge of which becomes more important from day to day. As soon as I shall be as tranquil over the objects of M. de Sartine as I am now over ‘notre amazone’ (the Chevalier d’Eon) I shall return to Versailles....

“I profit by the first sure occasion of dropping a letter into the post at Calais, to tell you, without its being known in London, that I have just put into the hands of the King, the papers and the creature that they have wished to use against him at any price.

“I say, ‘without its being discovered in London,’ because it is a great question to find out what my object is, but what can be gotten from a man who neither speaks nor writes?

“I am with the most respectful devotion, M. de Comte ... etc.... Beaumarchais” (letter given by Gaillardet in his Mémoires sur le Chevalier d’Eon).

Beaumarchais’s mission to Flanders is alluded to in another place by Gaillardet, without, however, giving any authority for the statement which he made. He said, “The court of Louis XVI still hesitated to follow Beaumarchais in the adventurous career whither he was drawing it, so to speak, with a tow-line,... although Holland and Spain were already engaged by his efforts to embrace the cause of France and the United States against England.”

Doniol in his Histoire de la Participation de la France dans l’Etablissement des Etats-Unis, said: “Franklin before returning to America had treated with armorers and merchants of England, Holland and France for the furnishing and transmitting of munitions of war to the colonies. These operations were centralized in London, and Beaumarchais did not remain ignorant of them.... He knew, heard, and prepared many things.”

Although “no special memoir, no private archive has up to the present revealed the intimate details (Doniol, II, 31),” it seems certain that the plans of Beaumarchais centered in the dispatching of funds, or if possible, of ammunitions of war, to the insurged colonies, and that the head of these operations was to be in the Low Countries. To further these projects, the most profound secrecy was necessary, not only to ensure their success, but to prevent the government from being compromised. This fact accounts sufficiently for the almost total lack of documents relative to these negotiations. What facilitated them was the profound discord which existed at this time in England itself, and especially the diversity of opinion in relation to the uprising among the colonists. No one realized the deep significance of this fact for the interest of France and of America better than Beaumarchais, and no one knew so well how to turn it to the advantage of both these countries. It goes without saying that had England been united in her desire to crush America and united in her attempts to prevent foreign interference, the history of the war would have been very different from what it was.

As a matter of fact in England “a party, small indeed in numbers, but powerful from its traditions, its connections, and its abilities, had identified itself completely with the cause of the insurgents, opposed and embarrassed the Government in every effort to augment its forces and to subsidize allies, openly rejoiced in the victories of the Americans, and exerted all its eloquence to justify and encourage them.” (Lecky, III, 545.)

“This glorious spirit of Whiggism,” said Chatham in a speech delivered in January, 1775, “animates three millions in America, who prefer poverty with liberty, to gilded chains and sordid affluence, who will die in defence of their rights as freemen.... All attempts to impose servitude upon such men, to establish despotism over such a mighty continental nation, must be vain, must be fatal. We shall be forced ultimately to retreat. Let us retreat while we can, not when we must.”

From the beginning, the members of the Opposition had emphasized the danger to Great Britain that would arise from a prolonged struggle with the colonies, foreseeing that they later would be forced into an alliance with France. (Walpole’s last Journal, 11-182.)

At this time the Americans had no sympathy for the French and no desire to incur any debt of gratitude towards them. “France had hitherto been regarded in America, even more than in England, as a natural enemy. Her expulsion from America had been for generations one of the first objects of American patriots, and if she again mixed in American affairs it was naturally thought that she would seek to regain the province she had lost.” (Lecky, 111, 453.) To ask aid of her was at first an intolerable thought to the greater number among the Revolutionary party—necessity alone finally drove them to the step. Even then, it was with no intention of accepting the help with gratitude, as subsequent events proved: It was a means to an end, and the less said about it, the sooner it was obliterated or forgotten, the better for all concerned.

The attitude of France towards America was of a totally different nature. There was never any feeling of animosity against Americans engendered by those wars which finally terminated so disastrously for the French in the peace of 1763. As these wars had all been of European origin, the resentment of the French fell upon the English alone. The very name America had a wild, sweet charm for every Frenchman’s ear. For him the red man was no savage foe, but a friend and brother. Side by side they penetrated together the dense fastnesses of the primeval forests, ascended the rivers, climbed the mountains, shot the cataracts; at night they lay down under the same tent, shared the same meals and smoked together the pipe of peace. The dread which kept the English settlers hovering near the coast was unknown to the French. Thus they were able to explore and claim for the great Sun-King the vast central region, part of which bears his name to the present day. Not only was the thought of these great possessions alluring to adventurers and traders; philosophers and thinkers as well looked into the future and saw the part that they were to play in the development of the race. In 1750 Turgot had uttered the following words, “Vast regions of America! Equality keeps them from both luxury and want, and preserves to them purity and simplicity with freedom. Europe herself will find there the perfection of her political societies, and the surest support of her well-being.” But since 1763 the fruit of French explorations on the continent of America had been in the hands of the English; a few sugar islands among the West Indies alone remained to them. Their foot-hold in America was gone, but not their love for America. More than this a generosity of nature, joined to a tolerance of, and admiration for qualities not of the same type as their own, has always been a marked characteristic of the French. It was therefore in the very nature of things that the nation should have been roused to enthusiasm by the news of the heroic resistance of the colonies, especially when it is taken into consideration that every blow dealt by the defenders of liberty, was aimed directly at the “triumphant political rival of France.”

But the people of the nation were not its government, and at the time of the uprising in America, France was ruled by a king, weak indeed in character yet absolute in power, in whose divine right to rule, his ministers as well as himself, believed. It was not, therefore, to be expected that the French government would look with favor upon the rebellious subjects of any nation, whether friend or foe. It was in the nature of things that they should hesitate before encouraging measures that were intended to aid revolt. As late as March 5, 1775, M. de Vergennes had written to the French ambassador in London bidding him quiet the fears of the English government in regard to the probable interference of France. “The maintenance of peace with England,” he wrote, “is our unique object.”

The French government, however, could not wholly resist the tide of public sentiment or remain altogether unmoved by considerations of interest. It was thought well to send some prudent and sagacious agent to the New World to try the public temper and to see if the interference of France actually was desired. A man admirably fitted for the task recently had arrived in London from the French West Indies, who in returning, had passed through the colonies, and who knew them well, leaving many acquaintances there. This man was Bonvouloir. The 7th of August, 1775, M. de Vergennes wrote to the French Ambassador, “The King very much approves the mission of Bonvouloir.” (Bancroft—IV—360) “His instructions,” he wrote to the ambassador a little later, “should be verbal and confined to the two most essential objects: the one to make a faithful report to you of the events and of the prevailing disposition of the public mind; the other to secure the Americans against jealousy of us. Canada is for them le point jaloux: they must be made to understand that we do not think of it in the least.” (Quoted from J. Durand’s New Materials for the History of the American Revolution, 1889, p. 1-16, Bonvouloir.)

On the 8th of September he set sail. The result of his mission, although it promised nothing to the colonies, was to them at least an encouragement. Already in the Summer of 1775 a motion had been made in Congress and strongly supported by John Adams, to send an ambassador to France. “But Congress still shrank from so formidable a step, though it agreed, after long debates and hesitation, to form a secret committee to correspond with friends in Great Britain, Ireland, and other parts of the world.” (Adams’s Life, I, 200-202.) It was with this secret committee, of which the celebrated Dr. Franklin was a prominent member, that Bonvouloir came in touch.

Although the French government had taken this one preliminary step, she remained to all appearances as indifferent to the cause of the colonists as she was to the condition of affairs in England. Beaumarchais began deluging her with such volumes of information on both these subjects, that almost in spite of herself, her own interest was aroused. “The energy of a believer is a force to which undecided convictions yield—and this was the case with the King in regard to the schemes of Beaumarchais.” (Gaillardet.)

But before entering into a consideration of those schemes, it would be well to glance at the actual condition of England herself. We already have spoken of the division existing in her midst, but the greatest difficulty which the English government had to encounter was the one that she has had to face in 1914 when she found herself suddenly plunged into war with another country, namely that of raising a formidable army. Then as now, the hatred of conscription was so deep rooted in the English people that even the government of Lord North did not dare to resort to it. “To raise the required troops on short notice was very difficult.... The land tax was raised to four shillings in the pound. New duties were imposed; new bounties were offered. Recruiting agents traversed the country.... Recruits, however, came very slowly. There was no enthusiasm for a war with English settlers. No measure short of conscription could raise at once the necessary army in England and to propose conscription would be fatal to any government.” (Lecky, III, 455.)

In her dilemma, England found herself reduced to the infamous measure of hiring German soldiers to fight for her against her own subjects. The shameful conduct of the Landgrave of Hesse, the Duke of Brunswick and the Prince of Waldeck, has been immortalized by Germany’s great poet, Schiller, in his Kabale und Liebe; “In England they excited only contempt and indignation.” (Lecky) Moreover, the disorders arising from the press-gang service ran high, while “after three expulsions, the famous demagogue Wilkes” still retained his seat in Parliament, and in 1774 had been made Lord-Mayor of London. At a public dinner he had been heard to exclaim insolently, “For a long time the King of England has done me the honor of hating me. On my side, I have always rendered him the justice of despising him; the time has come to decide which has the better judged the other, and to which side the wind will make the heads fall.” This divided condition among the people themselves justified the assertion of Beaumarchais, made in his memoir to the King: “Open war in America is less pernicious to England than the intestine war which seems likely to break out before long in London; the bitterness between the parties has risen to the highest excesses since the proclamation of the King, declaring the Americans rebels.” Beaumarchais in this was only voicing the general opinion. But “The English People,” says Loménie, “with that national sentiment and good sense which often has characterized them in great crises, baffled these previsions. The defeat of the English troops weakened the opposition more than the ministry. Everything became subordinate to the necessity of combatting with energy; and the irritation, instead of augmenting, cooled down considerably.”

As the war progressed, party-feeling disappeared while the actual entry of France into the struggle developed a unity of purpose among the English which would have been very disastrous to the new nation, had it existed in the beginning.

The summer of 1775 was passed by Beaumarchais, ostensibly in negotiations with the chevalier d’Eon, in reality with plans and arrangements made with other European powers to join France in the secret support of the colonies. No word written or spoken of these negotiations escaped him, so that we can judge of their nature only from the results. “The middle of September,” says Doniol (p. 134, I) “having arranged his combinations, he returned to Versailles to emphasize the necessity of France’s conducting herself as the future ally of the Americans, that is, to come to an understanding with them in regard to the aid necessary for the development of their revolt.”

M. de Vergennes seems to have been his first confidant. It was decided to act on the mind of the King. A memoir was to be drawn up and given to M. de Sartine who should believe himself the unique confidant. This plan was disclosed in the following letter which Beaumarchais wrote to Vergennes:

“Sept. 22, 1775

“Pour vous seul;

“M. le comte: M. de Sartine gave me back the paper yesterday, but said nothing to me of the affair. Now in relation to the secret which I let him think I was guarding from you, relative to my memoir to the King, I thought it better that I wrote to you an ostensible letter which you could carry or send to His Majesty and if you were not charged by him with a reply, at least I should receive one from your bounty to console me for having taken useless pains. Send, I beg you, a blank passport, if you think I should await the orders of the King in London, in case he has not the time now, to decide the matter well. Of all this, please be kind enough to inform me. Everything being understood thus between us, it will be to your advantage to write to me so obscurely that no one but myself can divine the object of your letter, if you should send it to me by way of the ambassador.” ...

The “ostensible” letter, which was written at the same time for the purpose of making an impression upon the King, was sent to the latter the next day by Vergennes with the following note:

“I see, Sire, by the letter of the Sieur de Beaumarchais which I have the honor to join to this, that he himself already has had that of reporting to Your Majesty the notions he collected in London, and what profit he thinks can be drawn from them.”... After asking for the King’s orders, he continued, “I requested M. de Beaumarchais, who was to leave to-night for London, to defer starting until to-morrow at noon....

“De Vergennes.

“A Versailles, le 23 Septembre 1775.”

(Quoted from Doniol I, 133.)

The “ostensible” letter is addressed to Vergennes but is really a second appeal to the King. In it Beaumarchais dared to state forcefully the embarrassment into which the King’s silence plunged him. He says:

“Monsieur le Comte,

“When zeal is indiscreet, it should be reprimanded; when it is agreeable, it should be encouraged; but all the sagacity in the world, would not enable him to whom nothing is replied, to divine what conduct it is expected he should maintain.

“I sent yesterday to the King through M. de Sartine, a short memoir which is the resumé of the long conference which you accorded me the day before; it is the exact state of men and things in England; it is terminated by the offer which I made you to suppress for the time necessary for our preparations for war, everything which by its noise, or its silence could hasten or retard the moment. There must have been question of all this in the council yesterday, and this morning you have sent me no word. The most mortal thing to affairs of any kind is uncertainty or loss of time.

“Should I await your reply or must I leave without having received any? Have I done well or ill to penetrate the sentiments of those minds whose dispositions are becoming so important for us? Shall I allow in the future these confidences to come to nothing and repel them instead of welcoming them—these overtures which should have a direct influence upon the actual resolution? In a word, am I an agent useful to his country, or only a traveller deaf and dumb? I ask no new commission. I have too serious work for my own personal affairs to finish in France for that, but I would have felt that I had failed in my duty to the King, to you, to my country, if I allowed all the good I might bring about and all the evil which I might prevent to remain unknown.

“I wait your reply to this letter before starting. If you have no answer to make me, I shall regard this voyage as blank and nul; and without regretting my pains, I will return instantly to terminate in four days what remains to do with d’Eon and come back without seeing anyone; they will indeed be very much astonished, but another can do better perhaps; I wish it with my whole heart.”

The memoir which had been sent to the King by way of M. de Sartine, the 21st September, 1775, shows in its first sentence that another memoir had preceded it. Beaumarchais wrote:

“Au Roi:

“Sire,

“In the firm confidence which I hold, that these extracts which I address to Your Majesty are for you alone, I will continue, Sire, to present to you the truth in all points known to me, which seem to me to be of interest to your service, without having regard to the interests of anyone else whomsoever. I left London under pretext of going to the country and have come running from London to Paris, to confer with MM. de Vergennes and de Sartine upon objects too important and too delicate to be confided to the care of any courier.

“Sire, England is in such a crisis, such a disorder within and without, that she would touch almost upon her ruin if her rivals were in a state seriously to occupy themselves with her condition. Here is the faithful exposition of the situation of the English in America; I hold these details from an inhabitant of Philadelphia arrived from the colonies, after a conference with the English ministers, whom his recital has thrown into the greatest trouble and petrified with fear. The Americans, resolved to suffer everything rather than yield, and full of that enthusiasm of liberty which has often rendered the little nation of Corsica so redoubtable to the Genoese, have thirty-eight thousand men, effectively armed and determined, under the walls of Boston; they have reduced the English army to the necessity of dying of hunger in that city, or of going elsewhere to find winter quarters, something which it will do immediately. Nearly eight thousand men well armed and equally determined, defend the rest of the country without a single cultivator having been taken from the land, or a workman from the manufactories. Every one who was employed in the fisheries, which the English have destroyed, has become a soldier and wishes to revenge the ruin of his family and the liberty of his country; all who followed maritime commerce, which the English have stopped, have joined the fishermen to make war upon their common persecutors; all those working in the ports have served to augment this army of furious men, whose every action is animated by vengeance and rage.

“I say, Sire, that such a nation must be invincible, especially having behind her sufficient country for a retreat, even if the English were to become masters of the coast, which is far from being said. All sensible people are convinced in England that the English colonies are lost for the metropolis, and that is also my opinion.”

Then follows an account of the discord prevailing within the country itself, as well as an account of the secret negotiations being carried on by members with Spain and Portugal. He concluded thus:

“Résumé. America escapes from the English in spite of their efforts; the war is more vividly illuminated in London than in Boston.... Our ministry, uninformed and stagnant, remains passive while events are occurring which touch us most closely....

“A superior and vigilant man would be indispensable in London to-day....

“Here, Sire, are the motives of my trip to France, whatever use Your Majesty may make of this memoir I count upon the virtue, the goodness of my Master, trusting that he will not allow these proofs of my zeal to turn against me, in confiding them to anyone, which would only augment the number of my enemies. They will, however, never hinder me from serving you so long as I am certain of the protection of Your Majesty.

“Caron de Beaumarchais.”

Of the secret deliberations of the council and the resolutions arrived at we can judge only from the letter of Beaumarchais addressed to Vergennes the night of the 23rd of September. The King had read the “ostensible” letter, and as Beaumarchais hoped, had been more stirred by it. He had conferred with his minister and had given his orders. Vergennes hastened to communicate them to Beaumarchais who left the same night for London. Later he wrote:

“Paris the 23rd of September, 1775.

“Monsieur le Comte:

“I start, well informed as to the intention of the King and of yourself. Let your Excellency have no fears; it would be an unpardonable blunder in me to compromise in such an affair the dignity of my master, or of his minister: to do one’s best is nothing in politics; the first man who offers himself can do as much. Do the best that can possibly be done under the circumstances is what should distinguish from the common servitor, him whom His Majesty and yourself Monsieur le Comte, honor with your confidence in so delicate a matter. I am, etc.

“Beaumarchais.”

But the French government was slow to move. They were willing to make use of the indefatigable zeal of their secret agent in collecting information, but they were in no haste to commit themselves by any act that might bring them prematurely into conflict with England. Rightly enough, they wished to wait until the colonists themselves had arrived at a decision. “France,” says Lecky, “had no possible interest in the constitutional liberties of Americans. She had a vital interest in their independence.” No one realized this fact better than Beaumarchais, and for exactly this reason he continued to urge, with unabated ardor that France should consent to give the colonists the secret, yet absolutely indispensable aid, which he had been preparing; the fear which tormented him was that through lack of means of effective resistance they should reconcile themselves with the mother country. Still apparently occupied with the affair of d’Eon, late in November he appeared again at Versailles. On the 24th in a letter to Vergennes relating to the change of costume decided upon for the Chevalier, Beaumarchais wrote: “Instead of awaiting the reply, which should bear a definite decision, do you approve that I write the King again that I am here, that you have seen me trembling lest in a thing as easy as it is necessary, and perhaps the most important that he will ever have to decide, his Majesty should choose the negative?

“Whatever else happens I implore the favor of being allowed an audience for a quarter of an hour, before he comes to any decision, so that I may respectfully demonstrate to him the necessity of undertaking, the facility of doing, the certainty of succeeding, and the immense harvest of glory and repose which this little sowing will yield to his reign.... In case you have orders for me, I am at the hotel of Jouy rue des Recollets.”

The “seed” which Beaumarchais demanded, which should bring such a harvest of prosperity and glory to France was a sum of money, 2,000,000 francs perhaps, which he proposed to send as specie, or converted into munitions of war through such channels as he had prepared in other countries. During the first period of Beaumarchais’s activity in our cause, no idea of his personal intervention except as transmitter of the funds of the government, appeared to have entered his mind. The icy coldness with which his advances were met did not in the least chill his ardor—he only looked about for some new avenue of approach. His plans had been disapproved, not to say rejected.—The 7th of December he addressed another memoir to the King, couched in such respectful language, so warm and glowing from his inmost heart, that its daring boldness was almost forgotten. (In his New Materials for the History of the American Revolution, Durand gives the Memoir in full.—The selections here given are taken from his translation of the original.)

“Au Roi

“Sire: Your Majesty’s disapproval of a plan is, in general, a law for its rejection by all who are interested in it. There are plans, however, of such supreme importance to the welfare of your Kingdom, that a zealous servant may deem it right to present them more than once, for fear that they may not have been understood from the most favorable point of view.

“The project which I do not mention here, but of which Your Majesty is aware through M. de Vergennes, is of this number; I rely wholly upon the strength of my reasons to secure its adoption. I entreat you, Sire, to weigh them with all the attention which such an important affair demands.

“When this paper is read by you, my duty is done. We propose, Sire, and you judge. Yours is the more important task, for we are responsible to you, while you, Sire, are responsible to God, to yourself, and to the great people to whom good or ill may ensue according to your decision.

“M. de Vergennes informs me that Your Majesty does not deem it just to adopt the proposed expedient. The objection, then, has no bearing on the immense utility of the project, nor on the danger of carrying it out, but solely on the delicate conscientiousness of Your Majesty.

“A refusal due to such honorable motives would condemn one to silence, did not the extreme importance of the proposed object make one examine whether the justice of the King of France is not really interested in adopting such an expedient. In general it is certain that any idea, any project opposed to justice should be discarded by every honest man.

“But, Sire, the policy of governments is not the moral law of its citizens.... A kingdom is a vast isolated body, farther removed from its neighbors by a diversity of interests, than by the sea, the citadels, and the barriers which bound it. There is no common law between them which ensures its safety.... The welfare and the prosperity of each impose upon each, relations which are variously modified under the name of international law, the principle of which, even according to Montesquieu, is to do the best for one’s self as the first law, with the least possible wrong to other governments as the second.’...

“The justice and protection which a king owes to his subjects is a strict and rigorous duty; while that which he may offer to other states is never other than conventional. Hence it follows that the national policy which preserves states, differs in almost every respect from the civil morality which governs individuals....

“It is the English, Sire, which it concerns you to humiliate and to weaken, if you do not wish to be humiliated and weakened yourself on every occasion. Have the usurpations and outrages of that people ever had any limit but that of its strength? Have they not always waged war against you without declaring it? Did they not begin the last one in a time of peace, by a sudden capture of five hundred of your vessels? Did they not humble you by forcing you to destroy your finest seaport?... humiliation which would have made Louis XIV plutôt manger ses bras than not atone for? A humiliation that makes the heart of every true Frenchman bleed.... Your Majesty is no longer ignorant that the late king, forced by events to accept the shameful treaty of 1763, swore to avenge these indignities.... The very singularity of his plan only the better discloses his indignation....

“Without the intestine commotions which worry the English they already would have profited by the state of weakness and disorder under which the late king transmitted the kingdom to you, to deprive you of the pitiful remains of your possessions in America, Africa, and India, nearly all of them in their hands, and yet Your Majesty is so delicate and conscientious as to hesitate!

“An indefatigable, zealous servant succeeds in putting the most formidable weapon in your hand, one you can use without committing yourself and without striking a blow, so as to abase your natural enemies and render them incapable of injuring you for a long while....

“Ah, Sire, if you believe you owe so much to that proud English people, do you owe nothing to your own good people in France, in America, in India? But if your scruples are so delicate that you have no desire to favor what may injure your enemies, how, Sire, can you allow your subjects to contend with other European powers, in conquering countries belonging to the poor Indians, the African Savages or the Caribs who have never wronged you? How can you allow your vessels to take by force and bind suffering black men whom nature made free and who are only miserable because you are powerful? How can you suffer three rival powers to seize iniquitously upon and divide Poland under your very eyes?...

“Were men angels, political ways might undoubtedly be disdained. But if men were angels there would be no need of religion to enlighten them, of laws to govern them, of magistrates to restrain them, of soldiers to subdue them; and the earth instead of being a faithful image of hell, would be indeed a celestial abode. All we can do is to take men as they are, and the wisest king can go no farther than the legislator Solon, who said: ‘I do not give the Athenians the best laws, but only those adapted for the place, the time and the people for whom I make them.’...

“I entreat you, Sire, in the name of your subjects, to whom you owe your best efforts; in the name of that inward repose which your Majesty so properly cherishes; in the name of the glory and prosperity of a reign begun under such happy auspices; I entreat you, Sire, not to be deceived ceived by the brilliant sophism of a false sensibility. Summum jus summa injuria. This deplorable excess of equity towards your enemies would be the most signal injustice towards your subjects who soon suffer the penalty of scruples out of place.

“I have treated the gravest questions summarily, for fear of weakening my arguments by giving them greater extension, and especially through fear of wearying the attention of Your Majesty. If any doubts still remain, Sire, after reading what I have presented to you, efface my signature, and have this attempt copied by another hand, in order that the feebleness of the reasoner may not diminish the force of the argument, and lay this discussion before any man instructed by experience and knowledge of worldly affairs; and if there is one, beginning with M. de Vergennes, who does not agree with me, I close my mouth;...

“Finally, Sire, I must confess to being so confounded by your Majesty’s refusal, that, unable to find a better reason for it, I conjecture that the negotiator is an obstacle to the success of this important affair in the mind of Your Majesty. Sire, my own interest is nothing, that of serving you is everything. Select any man of probity, intelligence and discretion, who can be relied upon; I will take him to England and make such efforts as I hope will attain for him the same confidence that has been awarded to myself. He shall conduct the affair to a successful issue, while I will return and fall back into the quiet obscurity from which I emerged, rejoicing in having at least begun an affair of the greatest utility that any negotiator was ever honored with.

“Caron de Beaumarchais.”

Post Scriptum.

“It is absolutely impossible to give in writing all that relates to this affair at bottom on account of the profound secrecy which it requires, although it is extremely easy for me to demonstrate the safety of the undertaking, the facility of doing, the certainty of success, and the immense harvest of glory and tranquillity which, Sire, this small grain of seed, sowed in time, must give to your reign.

“May the guardian angel of this government incline the mind of Your Majesty. Should he award us this first success, the rest will take care of itself. I answer for it.”

Consider for a moment that the loyal subject who dared to write thus to an absolute king, his master, was a civilly degraded man, incapable in the eyes of the law of fulfilling any public function. It is the same man to whom had been addressed several years previously, the famous letter from some English admirer, which was inscribed “To Beaumarchais, the only free man in France,” and it was delivered to him.

No special attention seems to have been paid to this memoir. At least no outward sign was given; and Beaumarchais after waiting several days, resorted to another measure. He addressed a letter to the King upon the very inconsequent subject of the costume which the Chevalier D’Eon should assume and the disposition that should be made of his man’s attire. To such questions, at least, Louis XVI would not fear to give a definite answer—perhaps he might be induced to take an additional step and half unconsciously to decide weightier matters. The expedient was worth a trial and Beaumarchais resorted to it. In writing the letter he left a wide margin and humbly begged the King to write the answer opposite each question.

“The autograph,” said Loménie, “is interesting. The body of the piece is written in the hand of Beaumarchais and signed by him; the replies to each question are traced in the margin, in a handwriting fine, but uneven, weak, undecided, where the v’s and t’s are scarcely indicated. It is the hand of the good, though weak and unhappy sovereign whom the revolution was to devour seventeen years later.... Below is written and signed in the hand of Vergennes, ‘All the additions are in the handwriting of the King.’”

“Essential points which I implore M. de Vergennes to present for the decision of the King to be replied to on the margin:

Finally Beaumarchais brought forward the demand for which the rest of the letter is but a cloak, the one burning question for the answer of which he had waited so long and in vain and to which Louis XVI still made no reply:

“And now I ask before starting, the positive response to my last memoir; but if ever question was important, it must be admitted that it is this one. I answer on my head, after having well reflected, for the most glorious success of this operation for the entire reign of my master, without his person, or of that of his ministers, or his interests being in the least compromised. Can anyone of those who influence His Majesty against this measure answer on his head to the King for the evil which will infallibly come to France if it is rejected?

“In the case that we shall be so unhappy as that the King should constantly refuse to adopt a plan so simple and so wise, I implore His Majesty to permit me to take note for him of the date when I arranged this superb resource, in order that one day he may render me the justice due to my views, when it will only be left to us bitterly to regret not having followed them.

“Caron de Beaumarchais.”

CHARLES GRAVIER—COMTE DE VERGENNES

“The temerity of the secret agent,” says M. de Loménie, “in the end prevailed over the prudence of the King; but for the moment ... Beaumarchais was obliged to start for London knowing only that d’Eon must sell his old clothes.”

For the moment the hopes of Beaumarchais seemed wholly shattered. “Intrigues of the court,” said Doniol, “controlled the actions of M. de Vergennes, and made him feel the danger. The minister was visibly the butt of serious attacks, Beaumarchais was in consequence held at a distance. Everything seemed to be compromised. He seized the occasion of the new year to write to M. de Vergennes.

“January 1, 1776.

“Monsieur le comte:

“It is impossible to be so deeply touched as I am with your favors without being very much so by your apparent coldness. I have examined myself well, and I feel that I do not merit it. How could you know that I had carried my zeal too far, if you do not first enter with me into the details of what I have done or ought to have done?

“Great experience with men, and the habit of misfortune, have given me that watchful prudence, which makes me think of everything and direct things according to the timid or courageous character of those for whom I do them.”

Thus the year 1775 ended and the new year began with but little encouragement for the agent of the King in the cause of America; but his was a heart that did not easily lose courage. More than this, matters were really advancing; the timid policy of the King and the objections of the ministers began to give way to “the quiet and uniform influence of M. de Vergennes, which imperceptibly overcame the scruples of the inexperienced Prince, who never comprehended the far reaching influence of the question.” (Bancroft—History of America, IV, p. 363.)

CHAPTER XVII

It was absolutely necessary to the existence and prosperity of France that the great commercial power and assumed preponderance of Great Britain and her attempted monopoly of the seas should be broken. The revolt of the American Colonies was her opportunity.”

George Clinton Genet in Magazine of American History, Nov., 1878.

Beaumarchais’s English connections—With Lord Rochford—With Wilkes—Meets Arthur Lee—Sends Memoir to the King—His Commission to Buy Portuguese Coin—Called to Account by Lord Rochford—Vergennes’s Acceptance of his Ideas—Article in The Morning Chronicle.

AS has been stated already, Beaumarchais during his stay in London came in touch with all classes. It was Lord Rochford whom he had known intimately at Madrid who introduced him at the court of St. James. It was d’Eon and Morande who brought him into touch with the brilliant, daring Wilkes, then Lord Mayor of London.

Around the latter’s table the most pronounced members of the opposition, as well as the leading Americans then in London, were wont to assemble. It was here that Beaumarchais met the young and gifted representative of America, Arthur Lee, who was destined to bring so much discord into all continental relations with America. The bitterness which subsequent developments brought out in his character had not then shown itself.

During the winter of 1776, Lee was replacing Franklin in London. Ardent and intelligent, with decided personal charm he captivated Beaumarchais. In fact it was primarily through Lee that Beaumarchais came in touch with the pulse of American life and from him that he acquired that ardent sympathy with the sons of the new world, which never left him.

Both Beaumarchais and the Count de Lauragais, another agent of France in London, urged the French minister to permit Lee to appear before him, to plead in person the cause of his country. But on this point Vergennes was inexorable, and Arthur Lee was not permitted to come to Versailles.

Most of the correspondence which passed between Beaumarchais and the French ministers during the early part of 1776 is lacking, but the following memoir addressed to the king, February 29, 1776, shows that a decided advance had been made:

“La Paix ou la Guerre

“To the King alone:

“The famous quarrel between America and England which is soon going to divide the world and change the system of Europe, imposes upon every power the necessity of examining well how the event of this separation will influence it, either to serve its ends or to thwart them.

“But the most interested of all is certainly France, whose sugar islands have been, since the peace of 1763, the constant object of regret and of hope to the king of England....

“In the first memoir placed before Your Majesty three months ago by M. de Vergennes, I tried to prove that the sense of justice of Your Majesty could not be offended in taking wise precautions against this enemy who never has shown herself delicate in those which she has taken against us.

“To-day when a violent crisis is advancing upon us with great strides, I am obliged to warn Your Majesty that the conservation of our American possessions and the peace which you so desire depends solely upon this one proposition—We must aid the Americans!

“This is what I will prove to you.... The King of England, the ministers, the parliament, the opposition, the nation, the English people, parties, in a word, which tear the state to pieces, all agree that it is not to be hoped that they can bring back the Americans, even if the great efforts which they now put forth should be able to subdue them. From this, Sire, the violent debates between the ministry and the opposition, the action and reaction of opinions admitted or rejected, do not in the least advance matters, they serve, however, to throw much light upon the subject....

“The fear exists in England that the Americans, encouraged by their successes and perhaps emboldened by some secret treaty with France and Spain, will refuse the same conditions of peace to-day which they demanded with clasped hands two years ago. On the other hand the Sieur L. (Lee) secret deputy of the colonies at London, absolutely discouraged at the uselessness of the efforts which he has made through me to obtain from the French Ministry aid of powder and munitions of war—said to me to-day,

“‘For the last time, is France absolutely decided to refuse us all aid and has she become the victim of England and the laughing stock of Europe, by this unbelievable torpor?’

“Obliged myself to reply positively, I await your last reply to his offer before I give my own.

“‘We offer,’ he says, ‘to France as a price of her secret aid, a secret treaty of commerce which will enable her to reap during a certain number of years after the peace, all the benefits with which we have for the last century enriched England, besides a guarantee of her West Indian Possessions according to our power.

“‘If this is rejected, Congress immediately will make a public proclamation and will offer to all nations of the world what I secretly offer to you to-day.... The Americans, exasperated, will join their forces to those of England and will fall upon your sugar islands—of which you will be deprived forever.’...

“Here, Sire, is the striking picture of our position. Your Majesty sincerely wishes to maintain peace. The means to conserve peace, Sire, will make the résumé of this memoir.

“Admit all the foregoing hypotheses and let us reason. This which follows is very important.

“Either England will have the most complete success in the campaign over the Americans; or the Americans will repel the English with loss; or England will adopt the plan of abandoning the colonies to themselves and separating in a friendly manner; or the opposition taking possession of the ministry, will bring about the submission of the colonies on condition of their being reinstated as in 1763.

“Here are all the possibilities brought together. Is there a single one which does not instantly bring upon us the war which you desire to avoid? Sire, in the name of Heaven, deign to examine the matter with me.

“First, if England should triumph over America, it can only be at an enormous expense of men and money, now the only indemnity which England will propose to make on her return, will be the capture of our sugar islands.... Thus Sire, it will only remain for you, the choice of beginning too late an unfruitful war, or to sacrifice to the most disgraceful inactivity your American colonies and to lose two hundred and eighty millions of capital and more than thirty millions of revenue.

“Second, if the Americans win, the moment they are free from the English, the latter in despair at seeing their possessions diminished by three fourths, will be still more anxious to indemnify themselves by the easy capture of our islands, and one may be sure that they will not fail in attempting it.

“Third, if the English imagine themselves forced to abandon the colonies to themselves, which is the secret desire of the king, their loss being the same and their commerce equally ruined the result remains the same for us.

“Fourth, if the opposition comes into power and concludes a treaty with the American colonies, the Americans, outraged against the French whose refusal to aid alone forces them to submit to England, menace us from to-day forth, to take away the islands by joining forces with the English....

“What shall we do in this extremity to win peace and to save our islands?

“Sire the only means is to give help to the Americans, so as to make their forces equal to those of England.... Believe me Sire, the saving of a few millions to-day soon may cause a great deal of blood to flow, and money to be lost to France....

“If it is replied that we cannot aid the Americans without drawing upon us a storm, I reply that this danger can be averted if the plan be adopted which I have so often proposed, to aid the Americans secretly....

“If your Majesty has no more skillful man to employ, I am ready to take the matter in charge and will be responsible for the treaty without compromising anyone, persuaded that my zeal will better supplement my lack of dexterity, than the dexterity of another could replace my zeal.... Your Majesty knows better than anyone that secrecy is the soul of action and that in politics a project made known, is a project lost.

“Since I have served you sire, I have never asked for any favor. Permit, O my master, that no one be allowed to prevent my working for you and my whole existence is consecrated to you.

“Caron de Beaumarchais.”

Under the outward show of indifference the French government had been steadily moving toward the point aimed at by its secret agent. Early in March Vergennes had placed a list of considerations before the king in which the future actions of the government were outlined. Beaumarchais had been recalled in order to deliberate with the ministers, and when all was arranged, he returned to London to continue the work there.

But the enemies of the cause of America were not slumbering and in spite of his precautions he found that he was being watched. “Beaumarchais,” says Doniol, “already under the suspicion of the police of the foreign office, of being employed with that with which he was really occupied, had been furnished with a letter by M. de Sartine, which gave him a mission in the name of the king to buy up ancient Portuguese coin, to be used in the islands.”

Beaumarchais wrote to Vergennes, April 12, 1776, “I wrote yesterday to M. de Sartine thanking him as well as the king for having furnished me with the means of sleeping tranquilly in London. Certain that you will deliver him my dispatch I lay down my pen, because for eight hours I have been writing and making copies, and I am exhausted.

“Deign to remember sometimes, M. le Comte, a man who respects you and who even dares in his heart to add a more tender sentiment.

Beaumarchais.”

The following letter bears the date, April 12th, 1776; but as Beaumarchais later explains, it really was written on the 16th. It shows the intimate relation which existed between him and Lord Rochford, as well as the skill and address of Beaumarchais in extricating himself from a very difficult situation.

“Monsieur le Comte:

“While England assembled at Westminster Hall is judging the Duchess of Kingston, I will give you an account of a serious conversation which took place between Lord Rochford and myself.” ...

The lord, after informing Beaumarchais of a letter he had just received from King George of England appointing him to the vice-royalty in Ireland, continued: “But I must not omit to read you the last phrase of the letter of the King, M. de Beaumarchais, because it regards you particularly.

“‘A vessel from Boston, charged with letters and merchandise from Congress for a merchant of Nantes, with orders to exchange for munitions of war, has been brought to Bristol. This circumstance, joined to that of two French gentlemen, secretly in communication with Congress, and having, it is said, hidden relations with persons in London, has singularly alarmed our council....

“‘Several evilly informed persons have endeavored to cause suspicions of this connivance to fall upon you. What do you think of all this? I know very well that you are here to finish with d’Eon; on this point I wish to trust your word alone, as I have already said to the king.’

“‘Before replying, Milord,’ I said, ‘to that which regards me, permit me to speak first of the vessel from America. Not that I have orders from our ministers, but following my own light. I have learned already of the arrival of the American vessel at Bristol, but I was no more astonished that it was charged for a merchant of Nantes, than if it had been one for Amsterdam, or Cadiz, or Hamburg. The insurgents have need of munitions, and have no money to buy them, they are forced, then, to hazard their raw materials in order to exchange them, and any port whatever where they can find munitions is naturally as good as any other.’

“‘But, Monsieur, has not France given orders in her ports in regard to this? Have we not the right to expect the merchants of Nantes to be punished?’

“‘Milord, you have permitted me the right to speak frankly. I will do it all the more freely since I have no commission and what I say will compromise no one. Indeed, Milord, do you wish our administration to deal harshly with the people of Nantes? Are we at war with anyone? Before asking this question of me, let me ask a preliminary one of you. Because England has a private quarrel with someone, what right has she to restrict our commerce? What treaty obliges us to open or close our ports according to the wish of the British nation? Certainly, Milord, I scarcely can believe that anyone would dare to raise so unbelievable a question, the solution of which might have consequences which England has great interest not to provoke....

“‘Nothing prevents you from chasing the Americans as much as you like, seizing them whenever you can,—except under the cannon of our forts, by the way! But require of us to disturb our merchants because they have dealings with people with whom we are at peace, whether we regard them as your subjects or a people become free, ... in truth that is asking too much! I do not know what the administration would think of such a demand, but I know very well that it seems to me decidedly more than out of place.’

“‘I see, Monsieur, that you are crimson with anger.’ (In truth M. le Comte, the fire had mounted to my face, and if you disapprove, that I have shown so much heat, I ask your pardon.)

“‘Milord,’ I replied, with gentleness and modesty, ‘you who are English and patriotic, you should not think evil that un bon Français should have pride for his country.’

“‘Therefore, I am not in the least offended.’”

The conversation now turned on the delicate matter of Beaumarchais’s mission. After showing his credentials for the buying up of Portuguese coin and frankly affirming that the affair with d’Eon was settled so far as he was concerned, he continued, “‘If there should be any pretended French agents in England, I am sure that if they could be captured, the government would disavow them, and even punish them....

“‘And now, Milord, I offer you my sincere compliments for that which the king destines for you. If you accept the Vice-Royalty, I hope you will remember your ancient friendship for M. Duflos whom I recommend to you afresh. I hope you will charge him with the details of your house in Ireland as you have in France. He promised me this.’ (This Duflos, M. le Comte, is a Frenchman whom I long ago secured for Lord Rochford; he is absolutely devoted to me, and through him you will always have certain news of the most intimate interior of the vice-royalty. I am a little like Figaro, M. le Comte, I do not lose my head for a little noise.)

“By the way, the Hessian troops have started. They took the oath of allegiance to England the 22nd of March.

“The Americans have actually twelve vessels of from twenty-two to forty-four pieces of cannon, and twelve or fifteen of twenty pieces, and more than thirty of twelve pieces, which gives them a navy almost as respectable as that of the English, and for the last two and a half months the insurgents have lost only one vessel brought into Bristol, which is indeed worthy of remark.

“I count upon your goodness to hope that my recommendations for Aix are not forgotten. [In allusion to his suit with the count de La Blache, still pending.] It is not just that I be judged in the South when I am nine hundred miles away in the North.

“Receive my respects, my homage, and the assurance of my perfect devotion.

“Caron de Beaumarchais.”

(Doniol I, 407.)

On the 26th of the same month, M. de Vergennes wrote to his secret agent, “almost as though he spoke to an ambassador.” (Doniol.)

“I have the satisfaction of announcing to you that His Majesty very much approves the noble and frank manner with which you repelled the attack made upon you by Lord Rochford in relation to the American vessel destined for Nantes and conducted to Bristol. You have said nothing which His Majesty would not have prescribed you to say if he had foreseen that you would be obliged to answer in regard to a matter so far removed from the business with which you are charged. Receive my compliments, Monsieur. After having assured you of the approbation of the king, mine cannot seem very interesting to you; nevertheless, I cannot refuse myself the satisfaction of applauding the wisdom and firmness of your conduct and renewing the assurances of my entire esteem. I have not neglected your commission for Aix. M. le Garde des Sceaux assured me that it would remain in suspense till your return.

“I am very perfectly

“de Vergennes.

“Versailles, April 26th, 1776.”

Post Scriptum.

“The king approves, that you do not refuse the overtures the Lord Rochford may make to you. You are prudent and discreet. I should be without uneasiness even if you had a more important commission than that which M. de Sartine has given you. It was well, however, that you had it, since it served to disperse the suspicions aroused by your frequent voyages to London. It must be admitted that the English whom we believe to be men are really far less than women, if they are so easily frightened.... Nothing equals the sincere attachment with which I have the honor to be, Monsieur, your very humble, etc.

“de Vergennes.”

The same day Beaumarchais addressed the count with a letter from London which runs as follows:

“M. le Comte:

“I profit by this occasion to entertain you with freedom upon the only really important matter at present, America and all that pertains to it. I reasoned a long time, day before yesterday, with the man you thought best to prevent coming to France. (Arthur Lee.) He incessantly asks if we are going to do absolutely nothing for them. And without wasting time in repeating to me how very important their success is to France because he does us the honor of believing that we agree with him on that point, he tells me simply, ‘We need arms, powder, and above all engineers: only you can help us, and it is to your interest to do so.’

“The Americans are as well placed as possible; army, fleet provisions, courage, everything is excellent, but without powder and engineers how can they conquer or even defend themselves? Are we going to let them perish rather than loan them one or two millions? Are we afraid of losing the money?

“Weakness and fear is all that one sees here....

“It is clear that the ministry is silent because it has nothing to reply. Fear and anger on one side, weakness and embarrassment on the other, this is the real condition. You would be still more convinced of this truth if you will recall the nature of their treaties with Germany and if you examine the rate of the new loan.... And when this is well proved, is it really true, M. le Comte, that you will do nothing for the Americans?

“Will you not have the goodness to show once more to the King how much he can gain, without striking a blow, in this one campaign? And will you not attempt to convince His Majesty that this miserable pittance which they demand, and over which we have been disputing for more than a year, will bring to us all the fruits of a great victory without undergoing the dangers of a combat? That this help can give to us while we sleep, all that the disgraceful treaty of 1763 made us lose? What greater view can occupy the council of the king and what force your pleading will take on if you show the reverse of the picture and count what the defeat of the Americans will cost us. Three hundred millions—our men—our vessels, our islands, etc. ... because their forces once united against us, their audacity augmented by their great success, it is only certain that they will force these same Frenchmen to support a fatal war which two millions now would avert.

“In spite of the danger which I run in writing these daring things from London, I feel myself twice as much French in London as at Paris. The patriotism of this people stirs my own....”

As may be seen from this letter, Arthur Lee still inspired complete confidence in the agent of the French government, so much indeed that Beaumarchais gladly disclosed to him the plans which he had formed for coming to the aid of the Americans.

So certain was he that France would ultimately yield to the necessity of giving them secret support that he no doubt spoke with indiscreet assurance on the subject. Exactly what passed between the two men will never be known, but what is certain is, that during the spring of 1776, Arthur Lee addressed to the secret committee of Congress a letter in which he says:

“In consequence of active measures taken with the French Embassy in London, M. de Vergennes has sent me a secret agent to inform me that the French court cannot think of making war on England but that she is ready to send five million worth of arms and ammunition to Cap Français to be thence sent to the colonies.”

A careful analysis of this important missive will at once make clear the profound misunderstanding which arose in the mind of the secret committee of Congress regarding the true state of affairs in France. So completely was every statement perverted that though the whole bears a semblance of truth yet in reality nothing could be further removed from it.

For instead of sending an agent to confer with Arthur Lee, M. de Vergennes had steadily refused to enter into any relation whatever with him. Instead of promising munitions of war for which Beaumarchais had been pleading so long and so ardently, the government continued to refuse to compromise itself by making any statement regarding them.

And yet in judging Arthur Lee, whether he intentionally distorted the truth or only indulged in what he considered a harmless exaggeration, we must not forget that this letter with its assurances of help, arriving at the moment which it did, had a profound influence in shaping men’s minds for independence.

As regards Lee himself, the letter had the effect of greatly augmenting his credit with Congress. Silas Deane was already on his way to France, charged with an express commission to secure munitions of war on credit, so it was determined to join Arthur Lee to the commission as soon as it could be brought about.

But to return to the French court. The first intimation of anything like an avowed approval of the plans of Beaumarchais is to be found in a letter of M. de Vergennes under date of May 2, 1776. He wrote:

“I have received the first of this month, Monsieur, the letter with which you honored me, written the 26th of last month.”

Then follows a lengthy preamble in which the count, speaking as an observer of men and one used to dealing with them, continues:

“This preface is not destined to refute your foresight, which on the contrary I praise and approve. But do not suppose that because your plans are not immediately acted on, that they are rejected. Although the method which I employ is sure, I am forced to curb the desire which I feel to express to you all my thoughts, therefore, I rely upon your sagacity to divine them. Think well and you will find that I am nearer to you than you imagine.... A thousand thanks, Monsieur, for the news items which you communicate to me, they have been seen and relished.... I have delivered the letter which you recommended to me; if an answer comes I will forward it to you. I flatter you that you know my friendship and attachment for you.

“de Vergennes.”

In fact the hindrances were gradually disappearing from the path of the minister. In a résumé, in all probability drawn up by Vergennes himself, entitled, “Réflexions sur la nécessité de secourir les Américains et de se préparer à la guerre avec l’Angleterre,” without date, but placed by Doniol the first of May, 1776, the following passages occur:

“There is no obstacle, and it is even necessary to aid the insurgents indirectly by means of munitions or of money....

“We are to make no agreement with them until their independence is established. The aid must be veiled and hidden, and appear to come from commerce so that we can always deny it.

“It would be sufficient for an intelligent merchant, faithful and discreet, to be stationed in each one of the ports, where the American vessels would come to land their cargoes—he would treat directly with their captains and would mask the shipments to prevent the reproach of the court of England.”—Doniol.

This was not at all what Beaumarchais had been planning and preparing. In the next chapter we shall see him with his usual flexibility abandon his own ideas and adopt those of the ministry, since they tended to the same end. In the meantime he was addressing the following letters to Vergennes:

“Monsieur le Comte: